3<^ 



Democratic Violence, Proscrii)tion, and Intolerance— Spirit of the 
White-Line Democracy — Dnty of the Kepubiican Party to 
J41 Maintain the Rights of Colored Men — Startling 

ig2 Democratic Defalcations— Unparalleled Cor- 

ruption and Maladministration. '\ 




V^'" 



SPEECH OF HO]^. 0. P. MORTON, 

DELIVERED IN THE MITED STATES SENATE JANUARY 19tll, 1876, 

ON THK 

MISSISSIPPI ELECTIOK 



The Senate having unJer consideration the 
resolution submitted by Mr. Mortoist, provid- 
ing lor an investigation into the election in 
Mississippi — 

Mr. MORTON said : 

Mr. President : If the information I have 
received from very many sources is substan- 
tially truo, the late pretended election in Mis- 
sissippi \vaR an armed revolution, character- 
ized by fraud, murder and violence in almost 
every form. It was carried on in some respects 
under the forms of law, but its real nature 
was that of force, the violation of law, and 
the trampling under foot of the dearest rights 
of great masses of men. A little less sudden 
than those revolutions which have distin- 
guished the Srates of Mexico and the coun- 
tries of Soutli America, it did not differ from 
them in character and was equal in atrocity. 

It is a matter of the gravest im[)ort to the 
American people to know whether a large ma- 
jority of the people of a State have been over- 
thrown and subjected by the minority, and 
also to understand upon what pretense or prin- 
ciple such a result was brought about. The 
only thing like principle thit could be assumed 
in justification of such a result would be that 
political and civil power should belong exclu- 
sively to the white race; or upon the other 
principle, that that party, the membeisof 
which own the most of the property in the 
State, should be allowed to govern to the ex- 
clusion of the majority, who are eenerally 
poor and the most of whom have nothing to 
depend upon for their subsistence but their 
labor. I apprehend that an investigation of 
the Mississippi revolution would show that the 
triumphant minority acted upon both of these 
principles, and in various ways boldly pro- 
fessed them as its doctrines. 

We had hoped that a hundred years of na- 
tional life had definitely settled the question 
that political and civil rights should not de- 
pend upon race or complexion, and that equal 
righJs belore the law and in the administra 
tiou of government should not depend upon 
wealth or property, but belong alike to every 
American citizen . 



In proposing an investigation it is hardly 
reasonable to demand that the matters to be 
investigated should tee proven in advance, for 
that would make the investigation unneces- 
sary; and all that ought to be required should 
be the exhibition of such probable cause as 
would justify the Senate, in the exercise of a 
sound discretion, in ordering an investigation. 
Investigations have often been ordered by 
both Houses of Congress, upon common rumor 
and upon general impressions prevailing in the 
public mind, derived from the press or other 
sources. 

If the belief whi?h is certainly entertained 
by very many in .regard to the character of re- 
cent events in Mississippi is not well founded, 
it is of th ! greatest importance to the people 
that an investigation should be had that the 
truth may be shown, as the material progress 
and prosperity of the State is deeply involved 
in such exoneration. I cannot, therefore, un- 
derstand the opposition to this investigation in 
any other light than a constructive admission 
of the truth of the charges, which have bepn 
made in regard to the means employed in the 
late Mississippi election, by which the majority 
was overthrown and the government of the 
State revolutionized. To shrink from such an 
investigation unquestionably betrays fear as to 
the result. 

Before proceeding to what I shall have to 
say about the Mississippi election, I propose to 
indulge in some general observations. 

PROSCRIPTION OF REPUBLICANS BEFORE THE 
WAR. 

Before the war men entertaining adverse 
opinions to slavery, and whose opinions went 
no further than opposing its extension to Ter- 
ritories then free, were, to a great extent, 
deprived of the freedom of speech and of action 
in the fifteen slave States. Men advocating 
such opinions were visited with social excom 
munication, deprivation of business and threat- 
ened and often visited with personal violence. 
Numerous pe'-sonal outrages were inflicted in 
the Southern States upon men who were 
charged with being Abolitionists; and to such 
an extent was this persecution carried that In 



\'. 



V\w. 



1856 and 1860 the Republican party was not 
permittee! to nominate electoral tickets or to 
run canditJates for the dili'erent offices in ten 
of the Soutiiern States. 

Republicans were not permitted to assemble 
in convention to nooiinate candidates, and 
could not bold public niettings in Southern 
cities and towns without danger of mob vio- 
lence. Not only were the Republicans of the 
South thus deprived of the exercise of those 
rights which are the dearest to American free- 
nien, but the Republicans throughout the 
North were made to feel that they were sub- 
stantially banished from nearly one half of the 
States in the Union; that to them those States 
■were almost a foreign land, and in some re- 
spects worse than a foreign land. I remember 
the personal humiliation I felt, which was 
aggravated by the fact that while Republicans 
we^e excluded from fifteen States in the Union 
they were taunted with this exclusion as if it 
were a crime on their part. They were con- 
stantly denounced as the sectional party. I 
felt, as we all did at that time, that the hand 
of slavery was resting heavily upon us. This 
denial to men of Republican sentiments the 
free enjoyment of their opinions and exercise 
of the ordinary forms of political action was a 
wanton and gross violation of the natural and 
constitutional rights of millions of people, and 
was bitterly felt and deeply resmted. That 
this state of things should have ended in war 
was not to be wondered at; for that sentiment 
which denied to Republicans the exercise of 
their dearest rights afterward hurried the 
South into rebellion. 

HOW WUITE PEOPLE ARE KEPT OtTT OF THE 
RIPUBLICAN PARTY. 

Man is a social being, and there is no disas- 
ter from which he shrinks so much, not even 
that of personal violence, as exclusion from 
the society of his fellows. The fear of that ex- 
clusion demoralizes men, and often causes 
them to sacrifice their principles and their 
honor. But the persecution against Republi- 
cans went beyond society and extended to their 
business; as merchants, they were not patron- 
ized; as physicians and lawyers, they were not 
employed; as farmers, they were denied those 
kindnesses and courtesies that belong to every 
neighborhood, and constitute the chief attrac- 
tion of agricultural life. We had hoped when 
the war was over that this state of things 
would have ceased. 

But, sir, we have grave cause to consider the 
question whether it is not the policy of the 
Democratic party of the South, in which the 
Democratic party of the North concurs, not 
only to defeat the Republican party of the 
South, but to extinguish it. We have i-eason 
to believe, and do believe, that there is a large 
body of white people in every State of the 
South, comprising many of the most wealthy 
and intelliaeut, and largely comprising that 
great middle class upon which the future 
hopes of the South depend, who entertain 
Republican sentiments, and would vote and 
act with the Republican party but for the 
dread of bringing upon themselves and their 
families social ostracism and destruction to 
their business. And thus a large body of 
white people have been kept out of the Repub 
lican party, and, at the same time, their ab- 



sence from that party has been charged upon 
it as a crime , It has been said that the party 
was composed almost entirely of colored people,, 
with an additional few thousands of whites in 
each State. 

Political power has thus been thrown into 
the hands of the colored people to a much 
larger extent than it otherwise would have 
been, and a large and intelligent body of 
white people who would have acted with the 
Republican party, and who would undoubt- 
edly have had control of its affairs to a great 
extent, have not only been excluded from the 
party, but compelled to act with the Demo- 
cratic party. To this condition of things the 
members of the Republican party can never 
consent, having due regard to their rights as 
citizens of the United States and to their per- 
sonal honor and manhood. They cannot con- 
sent in silence to be excluded from nearly one 
half of the States of the Union. All they ask 
in the South — not as a favor, but as a right — is 
that they shall be permitted to enjoy equal 
rights and privileges upon like terms with other 
people. They do not ask that those enter- 
taining Democratic sentiments shall vote for 
Republican candidates or indorse Republican 
doctrines. No such thing. Members of the 
Democratic party have a perfect right to vote 
for whom they please — to vote for Confederate 
instead of Union soldiers; but what we ask is 
that if any portion of the Southern people, 
whether they are carpet-baggers, so-called, or 
were born in the South, entertain Republican 
sentiments, they shall be allowed to vote and 
act with that party without being subjected to 
these unusual and terrible punishments. 

LET MEN AND WOMEN BE TREATED ACCORDING 
TO MERIT. 

They ask that every man in the community 
shall be received and treated according to his 
merits as a man. If he is a bad man, be he 
Republican or Democrat, let him be treated as 
a bad man; if he is a good man, be he Repub- 
lican or Democrat, let him be treat d as a 
good man. Let not his rights in society or in 
business be determined by his political opinions, 
but by his conduct and character as a man. 
This is all we ask,thathe shall not be punished 
socially or in business; that there shall be no 
dread or fear of personal violence on account of 
the assertion of his ojjinions. When that takes 
place, so far as 1 am concerned, my warfare is 
ended. When the amendments to the Constitu- 
tion guaranteeing equal rights shall be accepted 
by ail and enjoyed by all, and when colored 
men in the South and white Republicans shall 
be treated according to their merits as men, 
then reconstruction will have taken place. 
Reconstruction cannot take place at northern 
junketings or gushings,but it must take place 
in every town, village and neighborhood in the 
South, by giving to men of all political parties 
all their equal rights and letting them enjoy 
the privileges of society according to their 
merits as men and women. 

This exclusion of men from society and from 
business because of their political opinions 
is intimidation of the worst character. It does 
not differ in principle from actual personal 
violence. It is even more dreaded than per- 
sonal violence by brave men, who only defy it 
and assert their opinions in spite of it; but 



^^^ when it comes to punishment not only falling 

^upon themselves but their families, when they 

are to be isolaieA and their means of livelihood 

retaken away, many shrink back and surrender. 

C^ POLICY OF STARVING NEGROES INTO THE 
DEMOCRATIC PARTY. 

^j The league's which have been forn^ed in the 

South not to lease land to colored men, and 

.."Ihus to turn them out of their homes and to 

\^ refuse to employ them because they voted the 
Republican ticket, may not oe in violation of 
any law for which any legal punishment can 
be inflicted; but it is wicked in principle, In- 
famous in practice, and strikes at the very 
foundation of republican government. It de- 
stroys all freedom of election, and is a form of 
violence not inferior in its eS'ects to any other 
that may be employed. Id presents to the 
colored man the alternative of starvation or 
the support of the Democratic party, and is no 
less cowardly than wicked. That many of the 
most distinguished officers of the Confederate 
army after the war was over were disposed to 
accept the situation, to accept the amend- 
ments, and to act with the Republican party, 
is beyond dispute; but when any one of them 
came out and announced his purpose he was 
in almost every instance met with a storm of 
indignation and abuse and threatened with 
social punishment, from which many of them 
shrank back. Men who never flinched upon 
the field of battle quailed and turned back 
from the pitiless storm with which they were 
threatened. The case of General Longstreet 
may be referred to. He was one of the most 
distincruishcd officers in the Confederate army. 
He was regardpd by many as not even second 
to General Lee; and, when he declared his in- 
tention in Louisiana to act with the Republi- 
can party, was denounced as traitor, ingra^e, 
coldly passed by in the street by many of his 
companions in arms, and the doors of iife-long 
friends shut rudely against him and his fam- 
ily. At that time he was engaged in a pros- 
perous insurance business, and had not asked 
and did not desire any appointment from the 
Government. But his business was destroyed 
in a single day, and this caused the President, 
unasked, to tender him the position of sur- 
veyor of the port of New Orleans. 

General Longstreet, in giving the history of 
the affair, as I am informed, states that before 
he announced his purpose to act with the Re- 
puhlican party, he consulted wiih Generals 
Hood, Beauregard, and many other Confederate 
officers, and they had agreed with him that it 
was their duty to accept the situation, to sus- 
tain the Constitutional amendments, and give 
their support to the Government ; but after he 
had taken the step, and the storm of persecu- 
tion and calumny had burst upon him, the 
others retracted their purpose, and some of 
them refused to speak to him. 

The question seems now to he presented 
whether the Republican party, who, while con- 
stituting the majority of the armies ol the Re- 
public during the war, could not be driven from 
the Southern States, shall now be expelled 
from them in time of peace. That the Repub- 
lican party has committed blunders I do not 
deny, and very many people have been led to 
believe that one of its chief blunders was in 

> permitting through the legislation of Congress 
those who were lately in arms against t.heir 



country to return prematurely to the enjoy- 
ment of civil and political rights and again to 
fill the Halls of Couuress for the purpose of 
legislation. That the pariy has acted in grant- 
ing amnesty with a liberality which has no 
parallel in history is not to be questioned, and 
it is but a poor requital for that liberality to 
attempt by any means to exclude it from the 
enjoyment of equal rights and privileges in tho 
Southern States. 

DESTROYING THE CHARAOTERSOF THOSE TfHo"" 
JOIN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

Many Southern men who had joined the Re- 
publican party, and whose personal character 
had before been unirapeaclied, were at once 
covered with obloquy and shame, until it 
came to be understood that to join the Repub- 
lican party would cost a man his character and 
the peace and happiness of his family. When 
the war was over, the mass of the thinking 
and intelligent people of the South were pro- 
foundly disgusted with those leaders and poli- 
ticians who had hurried them into rebellion 
and overwhelmed them with the misfortunes 
of war. The rebellion in , its origin was so in- 
sane, and turned out to be so utterly destitute 
of sense, that the best men of the South turned 
away from its authors with horror, and were 
satisfied that the peace of the country hereafter 
could onlybesecureiiby the administration of the 
Government upon the principles of the Republi- 
can party; and I believe to-day that but for the 
exercise of the influences to which I have been 
referring there would be a majority of the peo- 
ple in Georgia, Virginia and perhaps in every 
Southern State, actins" with the Republican 
party, and that the colored people in their par- 
ticipation in politics would have the benefit of 
the intelligence and experience of a large part 
of the best white people in those States now 
acting with the Democracy. 

INTIMIDATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
BY ITS VIOLENT ELEMENTS. 

And this leads me to another consideration, 
and that is that the intimidation to which I 
have referred, whether of social and business 
ostracism or personal violence, has operated 
almost equally upon the Democratic party. 
There is a large part of that party in every 
Southern State, I believe a majority of it, who 
do not approve of the acts of violence that 
have been committed; who do not approve of 
the social violence which has been practiced: 
but they have in some way been restrained 
from the assertion of their opinions and have 
been powerless to correct these evils. That 
there is an element of violence in the Southern 
States, which I believe is in the minority, 
that has controlled them since >the war as 
it did before the war, I have no doubt. That 
a majority of the people of Virginia, Ten- 
nessee, North Carolina, Alabama, Louisi- 
ana and perhaps other States were opposed 
to secession and rebellion, I have always 
understood; but the lawless, the aggressive 
and active portion of Southern society 
were in favor of secession, and by various 
instrumentalities drove the other part of the 
people into its support, and that element 
which brought secession upon the South, I 
believe, has controlled the politics of the 
Democratic party chiefly since the end of the 
war. The terra "scalawag" is one of oppro- 



brlum and is applied almost indiscriminately 
to every man of Southern birth who has 
joined the liepublican party, and is often more 
cfi'ensiye io its application than that of "carpet- 
bagger." 

APPLES OF THE DEAD SEA. 

The colored people are fiercely denounced 
for their ignorance and want of moral training, 
and their condition, which is in many respects 
unhappy, is imputed to them as a crime. It 
must be admitted that slavery was a bad train- 
ing school, not only intellectually, but morally. 
The cruel and inhuman laws which made it a 
penitentiary offense to teach a colored child to 
read and write have borne their fruits, like the 
apples of the Dead Sea turned to ashes upon 
the lips of those who enacted them. It is 
written that the sins of the fathers are visited 
upon their children unt« the third and fourth 
generations, and it is not in the providence of 
God that the inventors of those laws should 
entirely escape their consequences. I would 
that the cup of bitterness could entirely pass 
from the wliite people of the South; but that 
is not possible under divine economy. Those 
who practiced African slavery for two hundred 
years cannot hope to escape all the evil conse- 
quences from it. 

THE MURDEK OF COLORED MEN DEEMED UN- 
IMPOKTANT. 

It is the merest folly to deny the atrocities 
that have been committed upon the colored 
people in the Southern States. The evidence 
is found in thousands of depositions taken 
before investigating committees, in the con- 
tinual revelations by persons coming from the 
South, and in the curi-ent statement of hun- 
dreds of newspapers, although there is reason 
to believe ihat not half, perhaps not a tithe, of 
the outrages are ever brought to the attention 
of the ijublic. 

They have been hunted like wild beasts, and 
the white sportsmen went gunning for thera. 
If that many white men had been murdered by 
the, Indians the whole country would have de- 
manded vengeance, and a larire portion would 
have clamored for the extermination of the 
savage tribes. When some twenty starving 
and desperate Modocs murdered Gen. Cauby 
and three of his colleagues, the Government 
never stopped until the last man had been 
killed or captured, tried and hung. When the 
Virginias, notoriously engaged in an illegal 
and hostile expedition against the Spanish 
Governm'Ut, was captured by a Spanish 
cruiser, and some fifty of the crew tried by a 
court-martial and shot, the Government de- 
manded immediate reparation, and threatened 
Spain with war in case it was not made. When 
some six years ago an American boat was fired 
upon and two men wounded upon the coast of 
Gorea, Qur fleet demanded reparation ; and 
when it was not granted, battered dowH the 
forts and slaughtered nearly three hundred of 
their soldiers. When Mexican robbers make a 
raid across the border into Texas and steal 
five or six hundred cattle, the depredation is 
ten-fold magnified, the Government of the 
United Staves is urged by many to go to war 
with Mexico, and at least to place the army of 
the United States along the Rio Grande for the 
protection of the property of the people of 
Texas ; but. when a hundred negroes are mur- 
dered in cold blood it is considered a small 



matter, unworthy the attention of the Govern- 
ment, and not even justifying an examination. 
One difference is, perhaps, that the cattle can 
be sold and the negroes cannot. 

THE STALE LIES ABOUT NEGRO PLOTS. 

The infamous lies about negro plots to mur- 
der the white people have become exceedingly 
stale and disgusting. Last summer the col- 
umns of the Southern Associated Press for 
days groaned with the stupid and clumsy story 
that the negroes had conspired to murder the 
white men and the ugly white women of 
Georgia. That this infamous lie was intended 
as a pretext for a slauirhter there is but little 
doubt. If apprehensions of these uprisings 
ever existed, they grew out of the conviction 
of intolerable wrongs inflicted upon the col- 
ored people, and are another proof of the 
truth of the saying, " Conscience doth make 
cowards of us all." 

Every year before the war there were stories 
of plots among the slaves to " rise " and mur- 
der their masters and families, which I believe 
in every ins'^ance turned out to be false, but 
were often made the pretext for the greatest 
cruelties. i 

There is a class of newspapers in the iS'orth, 
not professedly Democratic, but really so, that 
for several years have done everything in their 
power to blacken the character of Southern 
Kepubllcans. They have denied, justiQed, or 
excused every persecution and outrage that 
has beem heaped upon them. They have jeered 
at their complaints and sought to cover with 
ridicule and calumny every man who has 
dared to lift his voice against these horrible 
atrocities. 

The peaceable conduct of the colored people 
of the South during the war in remaining upon 
the plantations and working with their usual 
industry, while their masters were in the field 
fitrhtiiig for the professed purpose of perpetu- 
ating slavery, has been the subject of world- 
wide consideration and surprise. Tneir general 
behavior since the war, and often under cir- 
cumstances of great trial and oppression, has 
been remarkable for its pacific character and 
for their failure to take into their own hands 
vengeance for the enormous wrongs ihey have 
suffered. Nothing could be more infamous 
than the attempts which have been repeatedly 
and, in fact, constantly made to justify the 
atrocities committed upon them by alleging 
that they themselves had conspired to rob and 
murder the white people, and had themselves 
provoked and begun the different conflicts in 
which they have sufi'ered so greatly. The con- 
clusive answer to these foul calumnies is 
founded in the fact that colored men only are 
killed; that if white men are killed they are 
few in number, and the cases are exceptional. 

While the massesof the colored people of the 
South are uneducated, they are far from desti- 
tute of natural sagacity, are well instructed in 
the lessons of experience, and possess far 
greater intelligence than their enemies give 
them credit for. They know full well that 
their enemies are trained in the art of war, 
possess the best quality of arms, are skilled 
iu the use of them, and are daring and ag- 
gressive, and that in any conflict that may 
ensue themselves must be the greatest suffer- 
ers. They know full well that their interests 
lie in peace and the observance of the laws. 



DUTY OF THE KEPUBLICAN PARTY TO MAIN- 
TAIN THE RIGHTS OF COLORED MEN. 

Wbile it is the duty of all men to maintain 
the equal rights of the colored people, that 
duty rests with peculiar force upon the mem- 
bers of the Republican party. It was the Re- 
publican party that abolished slavery, made 
tive millions of people free, and this alone is 
the erramlest achievement in the history of any 
political organization. It was the Republican 
party that clev..ted the colored people toerjual 
civil and political risrhts and gave them a share 
in the administration of Government, and thus 
placed them in a position to be assaulted by 
those who believed in the rightfulness of 
slavery and that colored men should not, 
under any circumstances, enjoy civil and politi- 
cal rights. 

If after having thus placed the colored peo- 
ple in this position of trial and assault and 
exposed them to the dangers to result from 
disbelief in their natural rights, their menfal 
and moral capacity, and the hatred of their 
race, the Republican party should become 
tired and so act that tdeir enemies can say 
that they admit that the brief experiment of 
negro freedom and suflVage is a failure, it 
would deserve the execration of men, and, I 
doubt not, receive the punishment of Heaven. 
It seems that there are political dandies who 
have nominally professed in the equal rights 
of men, who now think it is the genteel thing 
to abandon the colored people to join in the 
erusade agiiinst them by professing a high re- 
gard for a good government in the"iSouth, and 
that the further consideration of their rights 
and remonstrance against their wrongs should 
be eliminated from political discussions, which 
should be confined exclusively to questions of 
currency, tariff, civil-service reform, and other 
economic subjects. 

Should the Republican party of the North 
become indifferent to the fate of the colored 
people of the South and ignore the atrocities 
committed upon them, nothing can prevent 
them from sinking rapidly into a state of vas- 
salage, and their last condition will be worse 
than the first. That the Democratic party of 
the South are reconciled to the civil and po- 
litical condition of the colored people is con- 
tradicted by their every act, by their daily life, 
by their history in the past and thtir aspira- 
tions in the future; and when they get the 
physical power — regardless of Constitutional 
provisions or Congressional enactments — they 
will hurl them from the platform of equality 
and reduce them to a vassalage but one re- 
move from slavery. 

WHITE-LINE POLICY. 

The white-line policy adopted by the Demo- 
cratic party in Mississippi and other Southern 
States proceeds upon the idea that the Govern- 
ment should be exclusively in the hands of the 
white people, and that colored people should 
be excluded from all participation therein. 
One excuse given for this is that the colored 
people had adopted the color-line, by which 
they sought to gain exclusive control of the 
government in Mississippi and other Southern 
States. This charge against the colored people 
is flagrantly false. So far from having ever 
sought to establish a color-line and to take 
upon themselves exclusively the government 
of Mississippi or other Southern States, they 



have continually disclaimed it, and by their 
conduct proved the sincerity of their disclaimer. 
They have always been anxious to act in con- 
cert with the white men; and although in Mis- 
I sissippi and other Southern States the number 
j of white Republicans acting with them has 
borne but a small proportion to their own num- 
! ber, they have given to the whites constantly a 
; majority of the offices. The fact that the 
j colored people have not joined the Democratic 
j party and entered the ranks of their bitterest. 
! enemies is most absurdly, even foolishly offered 
I as proof that they have attempted to establish 
I a color-line in politics. Had the colored peo- 
! pie joined the ranks of their implacable enemies 
! they would indeed have proved themselves to 
! be the stupid and incapable beings they have 
constantly been represented. The white-line 
policy was established by the Democratic party 
immediately after the termination of the war, 
and has never been relaxed or abandoned for a 
sino;le moment. Occasionally a resolution ha8 
been put forward in some convention renounc- 
ing that policy, but only for a blind to cover 
up more desperate designs. The first, Legisla- 
ture elected In Mississippi after the war, under 
the government established by President John- 
son, enacted a black code which for satanic 
ingenuity and malice has never been exceeded 
in any country. 

The Democratic State Convention in Missis- 
sippi, in February, 1868, adopted the following 
resolution as part of its platform: 

'^Eesolved, That the nefarious designs of the 
Republican party in Congress to place the white 
men of the Southern States under the govern- 
mental control of their late slaves and degrade 
the Caucasian race as the inferiors of the Afri- 
can negro is a crime against the civilization of 
the age which needs only to be mentioned to 
be scorned ^y all intelligent minds, and we there- 
fore call upon the people of Mississippi to vin- 
dicate alike the superiority of their race over 
the negro and their political power to maintain 
constitutional liberty." 

The white-line policy here adopted was the 
legitimate descendant of the black code of 1865, 
and the revolution of 187.5 was hut a continua- 
tion of the fight against the principles of recon- 
struction and the Constitutional amendments. 
I here quote a passage from the Merklan Mer- 
cury of last fall as a fair reflex of the spirit of 
the Democratic press in Mississippi and other 
Southern States, as I shall show by numerous 
extracts hereafter: 

"But the white man won't come down to 
the level of the negro's conception of politics 
in this or any other sort of government, and 
the negro can't come up to the white man's, 
and there's an end of it. TBtre is no u*e in 
all this sort of palaver, which fools nobody 
that has sense enough to be fooled. The re- 
construction which" put the white man and 
negro on the same political level with the 
white man puthim^'n a competitive antagonism 
which must and will last until the negro steps 
down and out, or until his Northern friends 
step in and rescue him from his perilous posi- 
tion and restore him to his normal relation of 
dependence and subserviency when in close 
contact with that superior race which never yet 
acknowledged an equal but of the same blood. 
'Unite politically' the two races never can. Po- 
litical equality is an absurdity without aa 
equality of intelligence and the governing vir- 



tues of the whole people. In the end a politi- 
cal unity will be first enforced, and then the 
political rii^hts, which had to be controlled be- 
cause dangerous, will be destroyed." 

Whatever disguises may be teniporar; y 
adopted, whatever protests may be made in 
Washingftoo, the inflexible purpose of the 
"White-Line" Democracy of the South is the 
destruction of the political rights of the negro. 

VIOLENCE BEFORE REPOBLICAN RULE. 

But it is said that the violence and intimida- 
tion practiced in Mississippi and other States 
have been the natural result of Republican 
misgovernment and the corruption of public 
officers in those States. That there have ijeen 
misgovernment and corruption is not to be 
denied, and that it has been grossly exaggerated 
for partisan purposes is equally undeniable; 
but that this corruption and misgovernment 
have been the origin and cause of the personal 
violence and social intimidation is utterly un- 
true. This violence and intimidation began 
with the end of the war, and, as I have shown, 
existed before the war; it preceded any attempt 
upon the part of Congress to reconstruct the 
Southern States; its most fearful outrages in 
some of the States took place before Kepubli- 
can State governments had been formed, or 
while Republican government was yet an ex- 
periment. The infamous Ivu-Klux organiza- 
tion began as early as 186(5, and practiced 
its most fearful atrocities in South Carolina, 
North Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama and 
Louisiana during the years 1867, 1868, 1869, 
1870 and 1871. 

The horrible slaughter at the Mechanics' In- 
stitute in New Orleans in 1866, where two hun- 
dred and sixty men were killed for no other 
crime than attending a convention, was while 
that State was still under a government that 
Iiad been organized by President Jc^hnson. As 
a report of a Congressional committee shows, 
within sixty days before the November election 
of 1868 more than two thousand men were 
killed and wounded in Louisiana for political 
causes, bringing about a change between the 
State election for May of that year and the 
Presidential election in November of more 
than 70,000 votes! 

General Sheridan, who had been carefully 
gathering up the statistics of the number of 
persons killed and wounded in Louisiana since 
1866, and up to February 8, 187.5, on account 
of their political opinions, reported to the in- 
vestigating committee appointed by the House 
last winter, the number, so far ascertained, as 
follows: 

Killed 2,141 

Wounded 2,115 

Total 4,253 

This is a greater number than fell at the 
battle of Bull Run, and with another difference, 
that in that battle the slaughter was not all on 
one side. 

Hon. George F. Hoar, chairman of the Con- 
gressional investigating committee, in his re- 
port made to the House last winter, briefly 
recapitulates the history of the murde s and 
atrocities in Louisiana, and presents a sicken- 
ing detail ot horrors that dwarfs into insig- 
niflcance any Indian war that has occurred 
within a century. The horrid massacres at 
the Mechanics' Institute, at Colfax, at Cou- 



shatta, to say nothing of those of lesser mag- 
nitude, relieve those at Wyoming and Sche- 
nectady of their historic prominence and throw 
over the butcheries of the Modocs a mellow 
light. 

The report of Hon. John Coburn, from the 
:^>elect Committee on Atl'airs in Alabama, sub- 
mitted to the House at its last session, presents 
another chapter of horrors a little less bloody 
than that of Louisiana, but partaking of the 
same general character. The murders, raids, 
cruelties and proscriptions practiced uuon the 
Republicans, both black and white, read like a 
chapter in the Moorish history of Spain. These 
reports, sustained by a vast body of testimony 
taken by committees on the spot, are to be 
found in the printed volumes on the shelves of 
your library, and may be inspecte by any one 
who doubts the truth of the description I have 
given. 

VIOLENCE IN 1868. 

The evidence taken by the Reconstruction 
Commiteee of the House, of which Mr. Bout- 
well, now a member of this body, was chair- 
man, in regard to the election in Mississippi in 
1868, presents the bloody and fraudulent ante- 
type of the election last fall. It reeks with 
murder, frauds, proscriptions, intimidation, 
and shows that the new constitution of that 
year was rejected by the most infamous instru- 
mentalities by which the revolution of last 
fall was enacted. The bloody record shows 
that the White-Line Democracy of Mississippi, 
who now would have the country believe that 
they have been patient and long-forbearing, 
but were finally aroused to uncontrollable 
angvM- by the oppressions and robberies of a 
Ixepublican State government, in 1868 hoisted 
the same bloody lias, bearing like inscriptions, 
under which they marched to a victory won by 
the same weapons. The pretense that they 
had borne with Republican robberies and op- 
pressions until forbearance was no longer pos- 
sible, and had resorted to intimidation and vio- 
lence only when no other remedy was left, is 
a falsehood, the monstrosity of which is only 
equaled by the audacity of its presumption upon 
the ignorance or forgetfulness of the nation; 
and I shall show hereafter that all the real 
grounds of complaint which they had against 
Republican State government in Mississippi 
were trivial, almost contemptible, when com- 
pared with the wickedness and enormities 
which distinguished the government of that 
State while in the hands of the Democracy be- 
fore the war. 

REPORT OF JOINT COMMITTEE. 

The report made by the joint committee of 
the two Houses of Congress on Southern out- 
rages, appointed in 1871, through Hon. John 
Scott, then Senator from Pennsylvania, pre- 
sents the history and operations of the Ku- 
Klux organization in Mississippi, South Caro- 
lina, Georgia, Tennessee and Florida iu a 
picture so fearful and revolting t'^at the reader 
turns from it with the sickness of the heart. 
It is a, tale of hundreds of brutal murders, of 
deeds without a name, of inhumanities and 
oppressions upon the innocent, defenseless and 
ignorant, that will challenge the annals of 
crime in any aije or country. 

When we read this dreadful record we reflect 
that the vengeance of God cannot sleep for- 
ever. The statesman who says that he is so 



absorbed iti the study of political economy 
that he has no time to attend to these great 
issues of life and death, and is wear}' of these 
tales of horror and sufferinc:, makes the same 
answer Cain made to the "Lord when he was 
asked, ''Where is thy brother?" and Cain 
answered: "I know ^m',. Am I my brother's 
keeper?" And the Lord said: "What hast 
thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood 
crieth uuro me from the crround." 

To punish such crimes the enforcement act 
was passed in 1871, which of course could not 
apply to offenses already committed, but un- 
der it nine hundred and thirty persons were 
indicted in the United States Courts in Missis- 
sippi. Of these, two hundred and forty-three 
were tried and found guilty, and the cases 
against three hundred and eighty-two persons 
are still peuding. In North Carolina 1,849 
were indicted. Of these, 518 were tried and 
found guilty, and cases are still pending 
against"7-12; in South Carolina, 1,186 were in 
dieted; in Florida, M\ in Alabama, 5o0; in 
Georgia, SO.^; in Tennessee, 7'-i, and in Ken- 
tucky, oO; in all, i,8G5. 

The passage of the enforcement act and the 
prosecutions under it had the effect to break 
up the Ku Klux organization throughout the 
South, and gave comparative peace and se- 
curity in several of the Southern States for 
two or three years. The suspension of the 
writ of 7i«&efls co)'73Ms by the President in nine 
counties in South Carolina had a magical in- 
fluence, and many of the most desperate men 
in that and other States immediately ran away, 
some of whom have but recently returned. 
The White-Liners of that State, yielding to the 
only principles they recognize, force and fear, 
suspended their operations, and have only re- 
covered their courage since the revolution in 
Mississippi, which they are now declaring it is 
their purpose to repeat and make the basis of 
their canvass in 1876. Social proscriptions 
and punishments were never more powerful 
and relentless than before the era of recon- 
struction and the years immediately succeed- 
ing; and it is an unanswerable fact that these 
outrages and horrors have not been inflicted 
upon the thieves and robbers, for they gen- 
erally had Democratic partners, but upon the 
innocent, the defenseless and the Ignorant. 

ALLEGED MISGOVERXMENT XO EXCUSE FOR 
MURDER. 

But if the misgovernment and corruption 
had been all that has been represented, what 
justitication or excuse would they constitute 
for the violence and murder that have been 
committed ? Xone whatever. If they be ad- 
mitted to constitute a justification or even a 
substantial excuse, that admission would be 
fatal to the existence of republican govern- 
ment. Misgovernment ami corruption have 
not been confined to the Southern States since 
the war. The darkest page in the financial 
history of any State in the Union is to be found 
in the repudiation by the State of Mississippi 
•of her public debt, many years ago, at a time 
when no Republican or Abolitionist could set 
his foot in that State without danger of being 
hung upon the next tree. It cast a deep shadow 
upon American integrity throughout the world, 
and is to-day as vivid in the memories of men 
as if it had occurred but yesterday. No simi- 
lar instance can be found in our history of 



equal demoralization and degradation of the 
public conscience of a State. There has been 
foul misgovernment in Northern States under 
Democratic administration; and we have wit- 
nessed in the city of New Tork, that strong- 
hold of the Democratic party, a depth of cor- 
ruption and fraud comprehending many mil- 
lions of dollars first dragged to lii^ht by 
Republican agencies, and the chief criminal 
has recently been permitted to escape in o en 
day by the connivance of Democratic olliciuls. 
But these enormous public robberies, which 
had been believed to exist for years before 
final exposure, were never dreamed of as an 
excuse for violence and murder. 

But it seems never to have occurred to those 
who attempt to justify these wrongs upon the 
score of Republican misgovernment in the 
South, that the proscriptions and violence that 
have been practiced there are in themselves 
calculated to beget corruption and disorders in 
government. Where men are persecuted, not 
for their crimes but for their opinions, and are 
made outcasts from society and the common 
enjoyments of life, they have but little induce- 
ment to be honest, and the temptations to 
fraud and corruption are increased tenfold. 
It is the lesson of history in every age that, 
where men are treated as villains and vaga- 
bonds and subjected to wicked oppression from 
society because of their race, religious or po- 
litical opinions, they are sometimes thereby 
made villains and vagabonds. 

NO FAITH IN VIRTUE THAT CONJJIVES AT 
MURDER. 

I have no faith in that virtue which assails 
with fury, fraud and corruption, but connives 
at murder, outrage and oppression. Those 
who make daily outcry about frauds, larcenies 
and defalcations, but turn a deaf ear to the 
cries of murdered men, to the shrieks of vic- 
tims upon whom are inflicted infernal out- 
rages, to the complaint of those who are 
driven from their homes and made outcasts 
from society for no other crime than their race 
or political opinions, are pharisees and hypo- 
crites of the basest sort. Frauds and larce- 
nies are infamous crimes, and deserve the exe- 
cration of all men; but they are inferior in 
enormity to the crime of murder. The taking 
of human life, save in self-defense, is the 
wickedest deed under heaven and among men, 
and the murderer need not be expected to hesi- 
tate at the commission of any inferior crime. 
He will commit perjury, forgery, arson, or any 
deed. We haye seen how the pretended ab- 
horience of public corruption has been made a 
pretext for murder, for the establishment of a 
reign of terror, for driving men from society, 
depriving them of their means of subsistence, 
and robbing many thousands of people of their 
dearest political rights. If there is anything 
more odious than these crimes, it is that reek- 
ing hypocrisy which affects to stand aghast at 
fraud while attempting to cast its mantle of 
eoucealment and protection over deeds the 
most dreadful and infamous. . 

THE GREAT QUESTION. 

The question of amnesty, which has recently 
excited so much attention, is interesting as a 
matter of justice, of feeling and of example. 
The national question of paramount interest is 
the political, social and industrial condition of 
the South, the violation of the political, civil 



and social rights of millions of people, and the 
subversiou of the will of the majority by vio- 
lence and intimidation. We staml in the pres- 
ence of a great danger overhanging the South- 
ern States, in which those of the North are 
powerfully, aud I must say equally interested. 
In many ot the Southern States the policy is 
openly avowed of seizing all power from the 
hands" of the white race, and depriving the col- 
ored people of their poliiical and civil rights. 
With this policy, commonly known as the 
white-line, it is believed that the Democracy 
sympathize in every Southern State, and I fear 
to a considerable extent in the Northern 
States. State after State has been conquered 
from the majority by violence, and we are no 
longer left in doubt as to the purpose thus to 
establish a solid South in the interest of the 
Democratic party, aud when ihey shall have 
obtained control of the National Government 
to reconstruct the Southern States upon the 
white man's basis, and to destroy the Republi- 
can parly by making it impossible for men of 
Republican x^rinciples to enjoy aud express 
their opinions in peace and safety. Then, as 
before the rebellion, the Republican party will 
be banished from the South, and it will be to 
them as a foreign country. When we consider 
how fearfully rapid the progress has been in 
that direciiou even under Republican adminis- 
tration, we can understand how it might be 
accelerated and consummated with a Demo- 
cratic President elected chiefly by the Southern 
Democracy, and necessarily sympathizing with 
them in their aspirations. Lest it be said that 
I do injustice to the Northern Democracy, I 
beg leave to remind the Senate that before the 
war the Northern Democracy not only connived 
at the oppressions upon the Republican party 
and its exclusion from the Southern States, 
but made merry over and defended the out- 
rages committed in the South upon Abolition- 
ists, and that now, and ever since the war, the 
Democratic party either deny, Justify or excuse 
the dreadful atrocities committed upon the 
white and black Republicans in the Southern 
States. 

PEKJUKT THE CONCOMITANT OF MUKDEXi. 

A necessary concomitant of the system of 
murder, violence and proscription in the 
Southern States is falsehood and perjury. The 
men who commit these crimes will, as a matter 
of course, commit perjury to conceal or justify 
them. In the Ku-Klux investigations and 
trials the most wonderful and disgusting ex- 
hibitions of perjury were witnessed. Many 
men who had before the Ku-Klux committee 
or on examination in court as witnesses testi- 
fied to all want of knowledge of the organiza- 
tion or of its crimes were afterward conclu- 
sively proven to be members of it and guilty. 
The victims of their infamous crimes were 
covered with th9"foulest calumnies, and scarce 
an outrage was investigated that was not denied 
under oath or just-ified or excused by the most 
infamous falsehoods against the sufferers. 

A monstrous system of falsehood has been 
continually practiced, not only in Mississippi, 
but in every Southern State, by which the 
Government of the United States is constantly 
charged with the grossest and most wicked 
oppressions of the Southern people. Republi- 
can State and county governments are assailed 
with charges of corruption and oppression 
which in most cases are utterly false or grossly 



exaggerated. Many very ignorant people in 
the South have thtis been made to believe that 
they are sorely oppressed by the Government 
of the United States, and that it is, as charged 
by a distinguished Mississippian, now a mem- 
ber of Congress, the most tyrannical Governs 
ment on the face of the earth; and yet if they 
were called upon to specify in what way they 
have suffered they could not do it, even if their 
lives depended upon it. The charges of cor- 
ruption against Governor Ames and every 
Republican State and county official in Missis- 
sippi have been so voluble and persistent that 
very many of the ignorant have been made to 
believe them, and have thus to some extent 
been hounded on to madness and criine. 

THE ONLY HIGHWAY TO PEACE. 

Many well-meaning people deplore any refer- 
ence to the outrages committed in the South 
as inimical to reconciliation and harmony be- 
tween the sections. They are exceedingly 
anxious that in this Centennial year all past 
differences shall be forgotten, and the people 
North and South, forgetting and forgiving, and 
mindful ouljof our great national future, shall 
meet and embrace as a nation of brothers. It 
is a consummation devoutly to be wished; but 
I must remind such well-meaning people that 
any formal reconciliation, while the dearest 
rights of millions are sys'.ematically violated 
and the greatest wrongs passed unnoticed and 
unpunished, will be the rankest hypocrisy, re- 
volting alike to divine and human justice. It 
is only the knavish quack who ptits a plaster 
over the mouth of the wound and says it is 
healed. The hi aling process must begin at the 
bottom aud be thorough to be permanent and 
healthy. 

All the gushing and hand-shaking which 
precedes the concession of equal rights and 
justice to men of all colors and opinions in the 
Southern States will be the veriest sham and 
deceive nobody. Such foul wrongs cannot be 
ignored and concealed. They will forever ob- 
trude themselves upon the world and cry aloud 
for redress. It will be the cry of "Peace, 
peace; when there is no peace;" and should 
the Republicans of the North turn a deaf ear 
to the complaints of the Republicans of the 
South and affect to believe that the reconstruc- 
tiou has taken place, and that all is well, they 
will be justly contemptible in the eyes of all 
mankind. The Union men of the South have 
been subjected to trials of which we in the 
North have but a faint idea, and have shown 
their faith and patriotism by adherence to 
their principles under circumstances whore 
the weak, the venal and the unprincipled have 
joined the enemy; and the Republicans of the 
North dare not, will not now abandon them. 
Let me say to this class of people, and the men 
of the South, there is but one highway to re- 
conciliation, and that is open, straight and free; 
and over its portals are inscribed these words, 

"EQtJAL KIO'HTS TO ALL; TO ALL THE EQUAL 

PROTnoTiON OF THE LAWS;" and if the 
Southern people will walk in that highway 
they will arrive at the temple of peace and find 
unbroken rest. 

The task which I have underta,ken is not a 
pleasant one; but I am in the performance of 
what I regard as a high duty. No more im- 
portant question can be presented to this body 
during this session than the one I am consider- 
ing, whether the majority of the people of a 



S'ate can be overwhelmed with impuuiivi', 

violence Jiii'1 IVnuii, and wiieiln-r a movement 
tliat looks to the ovcnlirow of the political 
and civil riiihts of five millions of people and 
the defeat of at least two important amend- 
ments to the Constitution of the United States, 
can pass on wltliout notice and without con- 
demnation. I ask the Senate this mornini;', as 
a matter of duty to themselves as well us to 
the country, to listen to the evidence that I 
shall produce. I will say in the beijrinning, to 
disarm criticism, that it will be almost all 
froni Democratic sources. I am aware that 
letters and statements brougrht here, and espe- 
cially if I am not at liberty to give the names, 
will have their force weakened because of their 
anonymous character; but I propose now to 
show to the Senate and to the country from 
Democratic sources the actual character of the 
late contest in Mississippi and the principles 
that are involved in it. 

But, Mr. President, before comina: to that, I 
want to notice the questl(5n of the finan<es of 
Mississippi, and put that matter in a true ligfht 
if possible. It has been constantly asserted, 
until a larare part of the people of the North 
believe it, that the reconstructed government 
in Mississii)pi, first under Governor Alcorn, 
then under Governor Powers, and then under 
Governor Ames, has been extravagant beyond 
precedent; has been and is thoroughly corrupt 
and rotten; and these charges, so persistently 
made, have male an imi)ression upon the 
North and have been made the (!xcuse and jus- 
tification for murder and intimidation in the 
State of Mississippi. 1 want, then, first to con- 
sider that question — how much, if any, truth 
there is in that general statement that has 
been so persistently made. 

TTIE STATE WHEN TFIE REPUBLICANS TOOK 
CONTROL. 

First let me say a word in regard to the con- 
dition of the State when ttie State of Missis- 
sippi in 1870 when the reconstructed govern- 
ment went into operation. Mississippi was 
then in an impoverished condition. She had 
been under a State government organized by 
President Johnson from 18(5.5 until 1S67, then 
under military government for three years, and 
the reconstructed government went into opera- 
tion in March, IS7U. The Republican party 
Ibund Mississippi in a destitute and prostrate 
condition. Many of the public buildings had 
been destroyed by fire; all of them were out of» 
repair, many of the court-houses, jails, asy- 
lums, and most of tlie bridges over the rivers 
had been destroyed ; the public highways 
were all in a dilapidated and insecure con- 
dition, and many ot them almost impassable. 
Extraordinary expenses had to be incurred 
necessarily, for the purpose of lifting the 
State out of this prostrate condition. The 
worlc of reconstruction had to be undertaken 
with a majority of the citizens newly enfran- 
chised, wholly unac({aaintcd with the science 
of government. The judiciary was recon- 
structed under the new constitution, and I 
may say right here, and I believe I shall not 
be successfully contradicted, that that judi- 
ciary has perhaps been the best the State has 
ever had ; that there has been but little said 
aeninst it. I believe no well-authenticated 
charge has been made against the Supreme 
Court, or against any one of the forty judges 
of that State. If such charges have been 



ma le they have not been broutrht to my atten- 
tion. Amidst the storm of obloquy and c.il- 
umny that has swept over that Btaie, thi^ judi- 
ciary has comparatively escaped from it. Si) 
far as the State olHcers are concerned, the ad- 
ministration I believe has been comparatively 
pure. No well-grounded suspicion exists 
against the integrity of Governor Alcorn, the 
first Governor, or against Governor Powers, 
the second Governor, or against Governor 
Ames, the present Governor. I know that gen- 
eral charges of corruption are made against 
Governor Ames, but I imagine that it will be 
impossible for any Senator upon this floor to 
bring evidence fixing any charge of corruption 
or fraud upon Governor Ames. 

Mr. Stevenson. Will the Senator from In- 
diana allow me to ask a riuestion ? 

Mr. Morton. I hope my friend will allow 
me to make my general statement. I will yield 
a little further on. 

Mr. Stevenson. I only wanted to ask the 
Senator a question. 

Mr. Morton. In regard to the subordinate 
State oihcers, I understand that no charges of 
corruption have been made against any of them. 
The present lieutenant governor, Davis, has 
been charged with taking a brit)e of $.500 to 
pardon a criminal at a time when he was act- 
ing Governor in the absence of Governor A mes. 
I believe it has not been officially or judi(;ially 
established in any way, and whether he is 
guilty or not I cannot say. Mr. Cardozo, the 
superintendent of public instruction, was 
charged with having been guilty of corrupt 
practices before he became superintendent of 
public instruction; but I have not heard of 
anything having been preferred against him 
since that time, though there may have been. 

The sheriff's of the counties of Mississi[)pi are 
collectors of taxes ea; o/^do. I have heard of 
but two cases of defalcation on the part of tax 
collectors in that State since reconstruction in 
1870. I do not say there are not others, but I 
will say that upon inquiry I have heard of but 
two, and the agirregate sum of the defalca- 
tions amounts to $15,000. One of these tax 
collectors was a Uepublican and the other a 
Democrat. 

There have been charges in regard to the 
public printing, that there were great extrava- 
gance and corruption in that. It has been 
said the rates for printing fixed by the Legis- 
lature of 1870 were too high, and I am not pre- 
pared to dispute it. I believe they have been 
largely reduced since that time; but the public 
printer against whom these charges have been 
chiefly made was re elected in 1873. The prin- 
cipal charges, against him were for maladmin- 
istration during 1870 and 1871. He was re- 
elected by the Legislature in 1872, and at that 
time received the entire Democratic vote in the 
Legislature. He was indorsed l)y the Demo- 
cratic party after those charges had been made, 
and I believe some of them had been preferred 
by Governor Alcorn himself. That does not 
justify or vindicate his conduct. But what I 
mean to say is that, whether he was guilty of 
those charges or not, the Democratic members 
of that body, with a full knowledge of what 
had been done, voted for his re-election, I be- 
lieve, unanimously. 

THE PINANCI.\L CONDITION OF THE STATE. 

Now, Mr. President, I come to the question 
of the finances of Mississippi; and I ask the 



10 



attention of the Senate to the pr»ise)it condition 
of the Stiite 2:overnraent of Mississippi in a 
financial point of view. I rear! from themes- 
sage of Governor Ames, and I presume it will 
not be successfully contradicted In any of the 
matters which he states. He says: 

''The condition of the State's finances is un- 
preaedently favorable. 

"The real debt of the State, that is, its out- 
etandintf obligations beyond its ability to pay 
at once with its current and available funds, 
(the taxes received for 1875,) amounts to 
$500,000." 

But very few States in the North are in as 
Gfood condition in that respect. There would 
have been a iarn;e public debt hang^ina: over 
Mississippi, comina; down from the years be- 
fore the war, if before the war that State had 
not repudiated the debt. But Ta/i now speak- 
ina: of the present debt of Mi6sii5sippl . 

"The common and Chickasaw funds — debtg 
upon which the interest only is to be paid,tlie 
principal never becoming due, (obligations in- 
curred many years since)" — 

Before the war — 
"amounts to * * * $1 ,.5:^0,620." 

This debt against the State, upon which the 
State pays interest, the State having received 
the money herself, is formed in thifi way: 
SSS^JjOOO were received from the sale of Chick- 
asaw school lands in 1847 — lauds granted by 
Congress in the northeastern part of Missis- 
sippi, sold for gold and put into the Treasury. 
These moneys were loaned by the State in 1^58 
to four railroad companies and lost. The rest 
of this $1,500,000 consists of fines, forfeitures 
and liquor licenses paid into the State treasury 
and set apart for the school fund. 

The expenses of the State government during 
the past year amounted to $618,25U 18 

The amount i)aid to the two universi- 
ties of the State, to normal schools 
and interest on Ohickasaw school 
fund was 138,893 37 

The Mississippi State bonds paid 
amounted to 250,000 CO 

Interest on bonds 37,564 00 

Extra improvements,(State buildings) 66,017 44 
* » * ♦ » 

Receipts over disbursements were for 
1874 49,114 47 

Receipts over disbursements were for 
1875, (based on moderate estimate of 
taxes already received and due,) 
over 400,000 00 

Since this message was delivered I have re- 
ceived a communication from (xovernor Ames, 
stating subsequent returns made by the State 
treasurer, which shows that the receipts over 
disbursements for 1S75 will be $496,000.- 

EXPENDITURES COMPARED. 

Now, Mr. President, I come to the question 
of taxation. The Repul)lican government of 
Mississippi has been foully and so persistently 
slandered on that subject that I beg the indul- 
gence of the Senate to go into a little detail 
upon that point; but before doing that I want 
to contrast the expenses of the present State 
governmenv, of Mississippi under Governor 
Ames with the expenses of the State govern- 
ment, be;;;inning with 1857. I have figures here 
which I am told have been carefully prepared 
from the journals. 



The expenses of that State government were 
in — 

1857 $738,531 00 

1868 6 14,859 00 

1850 740,015 00 

1860 063,536 00 

1861 1,^24,1 61 I 

1«6'2 6.810.894 00 

18 53 '2;210,:94 00 

18'.'4 5,ri4t>,73'J no 

18o5 1,410,250 01) 

1S68 I,8e0.800 00 

1867 626.00) i;0 

1S68 625,678 lO 

188'.i 463,219 00 

In these last two years there were no State 
Legislatures, and that accounts for the diminu- 
tion at that time. I have not been able to cet 
the figures for 1870, 1871, and 1872. For the 
first year of the reconstruction of course they 
were necessarily larger than they are now from 
the causes I have stated — 

] 873 $953,030 00 

1874 9i)S,330 110 

1876 : ....^. C1H,259 00 

I think that will compare very favorably 
with State governments anywhere. Then bear 
in mind that, by the enfranchisement of the 
colored "[people and they becomina: citizens, the 
expenses of the Government have been neces- 
sarily enlanced. That is an item that ought 
to be taken into consideration; and, further, 
that the expenses of the State government be- 
fore the war were paid in coin, and since that 
time they have been paid in paper, which has 
been at a very considerable discount, some- 
times as low as sixty-five cents on the dollar. 

TAXATION. 

Now, Mr. President, I come to the question 
of taxation in the State of Mississippi, [n 187:1 
the State tax for creneral purposes was seven 
mills; interest and principal on bonded del)t, 
one and a half mills; school teachers' tax, four 
mills. The tax for school teachers was first 
imposed this year by general law. This tax 
hail been previously levied Ijy the counties, but 
to obtain uniformity throughout the State it 
was thought best to make a general levy, and 
therefore it made the State tax that much 
larger. Now I will read to the Senate the law 
passed in 1872: * 

"i?e it enacted. That the powers of the board 
of supervisors in the several counties in this 
State, to levy taxes for all purposes of what- 
ever kind, is hereby «o limited and restricted 
as to prohibit the said boards from levving a 
tax any one year which, with the State tax 
added, shall exceed $25 on the $1,000 of as- 
sessed valuation." 

Now, I come down to 1874. The State tax 
was then six and three fourths mills; interest 
and principal on the bonded debt, three and 
one fourth mills; teachers' fund tax, four mills. 
Allow me to remark right here — and it is 
particularly worthy of attention — that there 
had never been a common-school system in 
Mississippi before the war; and, of course, 
there was none during the war; and the very 
first Legislature after the reconstructed gov- 
ernment established a common-school system. 
There were four hundred thousand sehool 
children in Mississippi of both races, and the 
most of them, even the whites, were without 
tlie means of education; and the State was 
taxed to establish and maintain a common- 



11 



school system, and If there should be any com- 
plaint about the increase of taxation or in- 
crease of expenditures, bear in mind that it 
comprnhends a school system, a tliin<j before 
unknown in the State of Mississippi, lu 187.5 
the tax law was amended, aa follows : 

"/>««< enacted, <f'c.. That the boards of super- 
visors of the several counties of this State are 
hereby protiibited from levyini;: taxes which, 
witli tiie State and school taxes, will exceed 
$20 on the » 1,000 of valuation." 

In addition to the above levy for public pur- 
poses a like tax was laid on business by the 
general tax bill of this year, and a sliirht one 
on merchants and some other branches of busi- 
ness perliaps. A poll tax of one dollar is 
levied that j^oes exclusively to thescho ^1 fund. 
The averaije delinquent list on all taxes is 
about twenty per cent. The proceeds of all 
fines, li(iuorlicenses, sales of public lands, &c., 
go to tha common-school fund, and cannot be 
used foi general purposes. Therefore the tax 
durino; the last year for all purposes cannot 
exceed twenty mills, or two per cent. I now 
invite the attention of my Democratic friends 
to a comparison between the rate of taxation 
in Mississii)pi and other States. This is com- 
piled from the census returns of 1870. Of 
course I cannot speak for the last year or two, 
but I understand that the rate of taxation in 
Mississippi in 1875 was no higher than in 1870. 

New York: 

AssKSsod value of property $1,967,001,1S5 

Total taxes 48,550,308 

Hate of taxation, 2.4 6-10 per cent, on the dollar. 
Ohio: 

Assessed value of property $1,167,731,697 

Total taxes 23,526,548 

Hate of taxation, 2.01 per cent, on the dollar. 
Illinois: 

Assessed value of property $482,89-1,675 

Total taxes . . 21,825,008 

K;i,to of taxation, 4.5 percent, on the dollar. 
Indiana: 

Assc.><sed value of property $663,455,044 

Total taxes 10,791,121 

Kato of taxation 1.6 2-10 per cent, on the dollar. 
Massachusetts: 

Assessed value of property .$1,609,983,112 

Total taxes 24,922,900 

liate of taxation, 1.5 9-10 per cent, on the dollar. 
Missouri: 

Assesseil value of property $556,129,969 

Total taxes 13,008,498 

Kate of taxation, 2.5 per cent on the dollar. 
Michigan: 

Assessed value of property $272,242,917 

Total taxes 5,412,9o7 

K;itc of taxation, 1.9 per cent, on the dollar. 
Pennsylvania: 

Assessed value of property $1,313,23S,042 

Total taxes 24,531,397 

Kate of taxation, 1.8 8-10 per cent, on the dollar. 
The average rate of the above States is 
2.1 5-10 per cent on the dollar. 

TAXATION COMPARED WITH OTHER STATES. 

I submit, in this connection, further evidence 
showing the rate of taxation in several States 
of the North. Mr. Smith, of 0\i\o'(Congrcssional 
Record, page 1G05, Forty-third Congress, sec- 
ond session,) says: 

"In the table before rae there is a statement 
of valuations of forty-five cities and towns, all 
the cities and a number o. the large towns in 
Ohio. The total valuation of the property in 
those ciT.ies is, in round numbers, $448,000,000. 
The average rate of taxation is 25.43:; mills 
per $100, a little over 2% per cent, on all the 
town property in the State of Ohio. This in- 



cludes all the taxes except special assessments 
for improvements," &c. 

The auditor of the State of Indiana says: 

"Ttiat a large portion of the taxes in the 
towns of that Slate are not returned to the 
State auditor; but, notwithstanding he has not 
those taxes in many instances, the average is 
there over 2 per cent. * * * 

"Am I told by gentlemen here, who live in 
New England that the rate of taxation there is 
at least 2% or 3 per cent, in that part of the 
country?" 

Mr. Cotton, following Mr. Smith in the dis- 
cussion on taxation in the District of Colum- 
bia, said: 

"I do not think that the city tax should he 
higher thun 2 percent., although thit is not a 
very hish tax. * * * vVe pay miudi 
more than that all through the West, in some 
case 4 and 5 per cent, on the value of the prop- 
erty." 

Thus it will be seen that this charge about 
extravagant taxation in Mississippi under the 
circumstances is without foundation. There 
is another species of taxation, however, that I 
must call attention to so as to avoid confusion, 
and that is called the levee tax. The counties 
along the line of the*Mississippi river that arc 
liable to overflow are divided into twodivisions. 
Each county sends a representative to what is 
called a levee board. These levee boards as- 
sess taxes for levee purposes. They are paid 
more cheerfully than any other taxes in tho 
State. They are assessed by the planters 
themselves owning the land, and of these, I 
believe, there is little or no complaint made. 
1 understand that they are paid cheerfully, 
and the complaint has been often that they 
were not high enough to protect the lands, 
because unless the levees were kept up the 
plantations would be entirely destroyed. 

Now I desire to call the attention of the 
Senate to this rate of taxation as compared 
with the taxation of Mississippi established by 
the Democratic Legislature of 18(55, and that 
which existed in Mississippi before the war 
wnder Democratic administration. The law 
in Mississippi until 1870 in regard to the assess- 
ment of real estate is found in the code of 
1857, and I will read it and would like to have 
the opinion of my friends upon it: 

"Lands shall be assessed every four years 
according to the intrinsic value, to be judged 
of by the owner or person having possession or 
charge thereof." (Code 1857, page 75.) 

The owners of plantations were made to 
assess themselves, and it is not recorded that 
they ever made the assessment too high, but 
there is much evidence that it was too low, 
and that the burdens of taxation were thrown 
upon the few feeble industries of that State. 

INIQUITOUS DEMOCRATIC REVENUE LAW. 

In 1865 there was a new tax law passed, to 
which I wish to call the attention of the Sen- 
ate, under the government established by 
President Johnson, when there was no Kepub- 
lican in the Legislature, and when the colored 
men were still little better than slaves. The 
first provision was that real estate should be 
assessed at the rate of one mill on the dollar. 
Bear in mind that Mississippi is an agricul- 
tural State, that there are few manufactories, 
and a very few moneyed corporations. The 
railroads there were exempted by law from 
taxation for twenty years by tha Legislaturce 



12 



chartering them. There were very few insur- 
ance companies, and scarcely any banks; so 
that there was 'out little, property in the State 
except real property and a comparatively small 
amount- of colored people's property; anil yet 
in levyin!; the taxation for that year (and that 
continued to be the law till 1870) there was 
but one mill assessed on real estate. The 
laud-owners threw the burdens upon the me- 
chanics and working-people of the State; and, 
us I shall show you, a more oppressive system 
was never devised; and I defy any member of 
this body to show auythi-ng in the history of 
what are called the carpet-bag governments 
that bears any comparison to the oppression, I 
may say the wickedness, of the tax law of 
1865. Of course one mill upon real estate 
would not raise money enough to meet the 
expenses of the government; and to supply 
that dulkiency they put a tax of $2o on a bar- 
ber's sliop. The poor h'lrlier luiLrht not have 
live dollars' worth of property in his shop, yet 
he paid $25; while a man whose real estate 
was assessed at $35,000 in value would only 
pay $35. 

THE POOR OPPRESSED. 

I want to show you what ideas of justice and 
equity prevailed at that ' time, and how the 
labor of the State was oppressed. The black- 
smiths, bakers, butchers, brick-masons, brew- 
tirs, carriage-makers,, carpenters, dealers in 
lumber and shiui^les, printers, gunsmiths, tail- 
ors, tanners, watch makers, painters, milli- 
ners and owners of llouring-mills were taxed 
twenty-five cents on each and every $100 of 
the gross receipts of their several trades or 
callings. 

''On sales of merchandise sold by any regu- 
lar merchant or dealer in goods, wares and 
merchandise, fui-niture, books, carriages, or 
any other species of merchandise, except ale, 
beer, spirituous and vinous liquors, .3 of 1 per 
cent. 

******* 

"On all livery-stables, upon the gross re- 
ceipts of their regular business, 2 per cent. 
* * * * * * * 

"On all confectioners' shops, barber.s' or 
hair-di-essiug shops or establishments, the sum 
of $25. 

****** * 

"On all pleasure-carriasres, clocks, watches, 
gold or silver coin, gold or silver plate, (above 
the value of $.50 of ijold and silver plate,) 
pianos and watches, }4 of 1 per cent. 

"On the gross receipts of i^l ferries, bridges, 
turnpikes and othrr places where a fee is col- 
lected from the passer, ]4 of \ per cent. 

"On the actual value of all solvent credits, 
)<^ of 1 per cent. 

******* 

"On each and every hack, cab, carriage or 
omnibus, used for transporting passengers for 
pay or compensation, if drawn by one horse, 
$5; if drawn by two horses, $10, and if drawn 
by four horses, $20. 

"On each and every dray or wagon, used for 
l.ransportiuy; freight for pay or compensatiou, 
if drawn by one horse, $5; if drawn by two or 
more horses, $10." 

This was the Slate tax on a few of the many 
subjects of taxation, and then the counties 
came in, and sometimes triplicated these 
taxes, so that I have heard of cases down 
there where a man's license on his drav would 



be $20, and the county tax assessed on a bar- 
ber's shoD added to the State tax would make 
it $100. 

It will thus be seen that this system of 
taxes was devised for the purpose of relievimi- 
th»se who owned the land, and throwing the 
burden upon the labor of the State. I might 
refer to many other things to show the iiii 
quity of this system of taxation under Demo- 
cratic administration in Mississippi; but there 
has been so much said about the oppression of 
the Republican party, as if it was a new thin;;- 
in Mississippi; but it has been so gros.sly ancl 
shamefully exaggerated lor political ijurposes 
that I wish now to I'efer briefly to the history 
of Mississippi under Democratic rule. I do so 
to meet a charge that I heard made on tlie 
floor of the Senate four years ago, and I have 
a very distinct recollection of it. A Senator 
was inveighing with great bitterness and 
power against rhe oppression of the llepubli- 
cau party of Mississippi, and said he, "I state 
it upon my honor that the taxes upon real 
estate in Mississippi have been increased ten- 
fold." I thought it was a very grave charge 
and a very gross outrage if it was true; but I 
did not know then that the tax before bad 
been only one mill on real estate and had 
afterward been put up to 1 per cent. 

STAliTLlNG DEMOCRATIC DEFALCATIONS. 

Now I come to the question of Democratic 
taxation before the war, and I shall quote en- 
tirely from olf5cial sources. The Senate Jour- 
nal of Mississippi for 1810 shows a list of de- 
faulters for one year in that State, amounting 
to thirty-eight county sheriffs. They num- 
bered twenty-eight defaulters in that many 
counties, amounting to $36,980. The Senate 
Journal for the next year shows thirty-six 
defalcations in that many counties on the part 
of 'tax collectors, amoanting to $90,617; and I 
shall show by a quotation from the message of 
one of the Governors that these men were 
never brought to justice, but that defalcations, 
recklessness and robbery were so common 
that there was scarce any attempt made to 
hold men to official responsibility. The fol- 
lowing tables are taken from the official jour- 
nals of the Mississippi Legislature : 

[Senate Journal, 1S40, pages 90, 91. Defalcations 
of 1S38.] 

Ohoctaw $134 68 

Madison 9-17 21 

Winston 71 67 

Lauderdale 24 Vt6 

1 tawamba Vl 67 

Copiah ■ 50 00 

Oktibbeha 78 44 

Hancock 15i> 00 

Jetferson 6,930 19 

Carroll •.■•• 2,990 21 

Coahoma 251 25 

Leake 4d9 67 

SmitU 285 62 

Covington 189 00 

Yalabusha 2(55 96 

Warren t: ^,855 43 

Lafayette 1,053 8S 

Pontotoc 62 VO 

Amite ao 00 

Pauola 60 00 

Washinstou 1,992 3-i 

Tishemingo -21 89 

Clarke... 4'i6 26 

Solmes 'l,22i! 66 

Monroe 2,155 o>> 

Tallahatchie 1,048 -5 

Total $26,980 27 



13 



lu Senate Journal, 1840, paees 86 and 87, 
cxliibit A, is a list of public defaulters, re- 
lerrcd to by name and county and the amount 
due by each, 1»:;'J. Number, 33. Total 
amount, $1)0,017.46 : 

No.xubee ^. . 

JLuwndes 

Uroeno , 

Adams 

\V ni«.on 

Carroll 

Hain^ock 

Son 

Clreciie 

Wilkinson , 

AdaiuB 

.Icllerson 

liiuils 

Marsball 

(Jhickasaw 

Keuiper 

(Jhuctaw 

lafa 



ttlaTJliall.... 

Jellcrson 

FonioCoc . . 

W.arren 

\azuo 

Wilkinson... 
Covington.., 

.loucs 

Lauderdale. 
Liowndes.... 

Adams 

Lieake 

Uinds 

Monroe 

Madison.... 
lloiuies 



11,235 60 

368 S8 

•Z-l 8'.l 

7,708 OJ 

66 13 

1,»:51 38 

aiO 21 

42 00 

718 84 

1,0+7 8b 

204 43 

4,113 38 

2,037 24 

4lir, 00 

75 0.i 

650 72 

285 51 

153 35 

1,480 3 I 

b35 38 

2,821 OS 

72 T3 

58 40 

873 51 

317 6S 

206 86 

285 06 

35,431 77 

101 00 

15,836 78 

l,-.:7i 32 

5,y'J5 4+ 

3,by6 13 



Total $yO,617 46 

1 read from the message of Governor McNutt, 
of Mississippi: 

"Thirteen tax-collectors are in default for 
the year 1838 in the sum of $23, 533. 38; and 
twenty-one in the sum of $32,859.25 lor the 
taxes of 1839. Large balances are still due for 
taxes which have accrued previous to the year 
1838. Some of the assessors have failed to re- 
turn their assessment-rolls. The auditor esti- 
mates the taxes of 1840 at $192,876.94. It will 
be perceived that the expenses of the govern- 
ment cannot be svistained hereafter without a 
tliauge in our whole system of assessing and 
collecting the revenues. Not more than one 
half of the taxable property in the State is 
ever assessed, and large portions of the taxes 
collected are never paid into the State treas- 
ury." 

THE STATE TREASUKr ROBBED. 

That is the testimony of Governor McNutt. 
In 1843, Mr. Graves, State treasurer, was a de- 
faulter to the amount of $165,.547.07, and ab- 
sconded, in 1858, the then Governor says of 
the auditor, John MaDory: 

"It appears that he is a defaulter to the 
amount of $54,097.96, all except $230.58 on ac- 
count of town lots and the 3 per cent, seminary 
and sinking funds." 

In 1866, under President Johnson's govern- 
ment, the defalcation of A. D. Haynes, State 
treasurer, was $61,963.38. According to the 
report — 

"The amount of defalcations and insolven- 
cies disclosed annually in the auditor's report 
can but satisfy you that there is great remiss- 
ness on the part of some of the collectors." 

In view of this character of its government 
before the war is it probable that the Democ- 
rasy of Mississippi have been aroused to an un- 



controllable aneerby tlie allegation of corrup 
tion and niismaii:i<:enient on tlie part of ihe 
llepunlicans of Mississippi for the last six 
years? And, Mr. President, I have only made 
a little beginning in it. 

I am aulfliorized to state here by a gentle 
man whois very familiar with. the condition of 
MiBSissi]iin that this d.'falcation of Haynes in 
1866 of $(il,()00 is greater than all the defalca- 
tions which have taken place in Mississippi 
since that time. 

MISSISSIPPI'S SHAME. 

This is only a very small part of the history 
of corruption in Mississippi belbre the war. In 
1S29 the Legislature of Mississippi chartered 
the Planters' Bank, in which the State sub 
scribed $2,000,000 of stock under the charter. 
The State issued her bonds to procure the 
money to pay for that stock, and the bonds 
were sold in the London market at 113>2 . A 
part of them passed afterwards into the hands 
of George Peabody. A sinking fund vv.-is prp- 
vided to pay these bonds. It was provided that 
the dividend on the stock should go into the 
State treasury, and remain there as a sinking 
fund to pay the bonds when they should fall 
due, and that sinking lund had grown until it 
contained $560,000. In 1838 the State char- 
tered what was called the Union Bank of Mis- 
sissippi, with a capital of $15,000,000. The 
State provided for issuing to the bank her own 
bonds, made payable to the bank, for $15,000,- 
000. In other words, the State guaranteed the 
stock, but only $5,000,000of bonds were issued. 
These bonds were sold to Nicholas Biddle, the 
President of the Bank of the United States, at 
par, and the State subscribed her stock, or 
took stock to that amount in the Union Bank 
of Mississippi. Two years after that the bank 
failed, and the Planters' Bank failed, and 
then the State repudiated the bonds of 
the Planters' Bank and the Union Bank, and 
there began the darkest spot in the financial 
history of any State in this Union. These bonds 
were boKlly and shamefully repudiated upon 
the ourailest possible legal quibble or pretext, 
and I desire to read to the Senate the i-easons 
given bv Governor McNutt for this repudia- 
tion. li> seems that the $5,000,000 of bonds 
that liad been purchased by the Bank of the 
United States had been hypothecated with the 
Rothschilds, in England, for borroweu money. 
Governor McNutt, in giving the reasons why 
these bonds should be repudiated in the hands 
of the Rothschilds, says this: • 

"The bank, (i. e., the Bank of the United 
States,) 1 have been informed, have hypothe- 
cated these bonds and borrowed money upon 
them of the Baron Rothschild; the blood of 
Judas and Shylock flows in his veins, and he 
unites the qualities of both his countrymen. 
He has mortgages on the silver mines of Mex- 
ico and the qui«k6ilver mines of Spain; he has 
advanced money to the Sublime Porte, and 
taken as security a mortirage upon the holy 
city of Jerusalem and the sepulchre of our 
Saviour. It is for the people to say whether 
he shall have a mortgage upon our cotton- 
fields and make serfs of our children. Let the 
baron exact his pound of flesh of Mr. Jordan 
and the Bank of the United States, and let the 
latter institution of our country exact the 
same of the Mississippi Union Bank. The 
honor, justice and dignity of the people of this 



14 



State will not suffer them to interfere in the 
bankers' war." 

A BITTER SARCASM. 

The bonds were repudiated. I now want to 
c:tll the attention of the Senate to a sarcasm, 
and a very bitter one, by Mr. Peabody, Mr. 
P'labody held a part of the bonds issued to the 
Planters' Bank, and just before his death, as 
you are aware, he made a magnificent dona- 
tion to the Southern States and a gift of 
$1,000,000 to tlie State of Mississippi. In a 
h tter addressed by Mr. George Peabody to the 
trustees of the Peabody fund for education 
in the Southern States, dated February 7, 
l-(57, in which he designated the amount and 
iliaracter of funds set apart for that purpose, 
hi! says : 

"In addition to this gift ($1,000,000) I place 
in your hands bonds of the State of Mississippi, 
ii.sued by the Planters' Bank, and commonly 
known as the Planters' Bank bonds, amount- 
in-- with interest 1o about eleven hundred 
thousand dollars, the amount realized by you 
li om which is to be added to the fund and used 
for the purpose of this trust." 

A BLACK RECORD. 

But, Mr. President, this is not the worst part 
o'' the repudiation of the bonds of the State of 
Mississippi. Ihe Union Bank was incorporated 
ill ISo8. The money was loaned to members 
of the Legislature and the leaders of the party 
wiio had incorporated the bank. They bor- 
ruwed it with security, or with imperfect se- 
curity, and I read the statement in regard to 
the winding up of that banii and of the Plant- 
ers' Bank, which has been made out for me, 
and I have no doubt is corrac-t, and I ask the 
Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Alcorn] to tell 
me whether the history is correctly given or 
not. 

^ The State sold bonds at par to the amount of 
§r>,000,000, which was subscribed as sto?k to 
the bank. The bank was organized and its 
directors appointed. Among their first acts 
was an order authorizina; the cashier to dis- 
count the individual notes of the directors for 
*50,000 each, and this they obtained. The 
biink went forward in a most reckless style, 
but secured, nevertheless, on its loans, a large 
amount of money circulated among the people 
by taking mortgages and other securities. 

In l.Si2, while the banks were going on in 
the elfoit to recover the moneys they had 
loaned, an act of the Legislature was passed — 
I call attention to this, because I do not think 
any carpet-bag gOTernment, with their best 
efforts, could equal this— the Legislature 
passed an act authorizing a writ of Ijuo war- 
ranto to be sued out against the banks'in order 
that their charters be 'forfeited. The Legisla- 
ture provided a sharp and speedy remedy for 
the Ibrfeiture of their eharters. The charters 
were forfeited, and all efforts on the part of 
the creditors of the bank to induce the Legis- 
lature to provide a remedy for the recovery of 
debts due to ttie banks were fruitless, and the 
whole amount was lost. The debts due the 
banks were thus wiped out, and all suits were 
abated. The corporations could neither sue or 
be sued, as they were fimctun officio. 

The men who borrowed the money had con- 
trolled the Legislature, provided for forfeitinir 
the charter, and destroyed the banks, so thai 
they could not be sued for monev loaned, and 



thus they kept the money. Now, take it al- 
together, has there ever been anything like 
this in the history of any other State? I invoke 
my friends to search the history of carpet-bag 
governments in Mississippi or elsewhere, and 
see if anything approaching this enormity can 
be found. Tlie idea ot destroying the charter 
of a bank by the very men who borrowed the 
money so that they could not be sued, and 
then the State repudiating the bonds that 
had been sold in good faith, and for which it 
had received the gold, I think never occurred 
to anybody outside of Mississippi. Now I 
want to give the specimen — it is only one of 
many — of another steal down there, and, by 
the way, I will ask the Senator from Mis- 
sissippi if the facts I have presented are cor- 
rect. 

Mr. Alcorn. My recollection is that it is 
substantially correct. 

Mr. Morton. In 1841 the Legislature, being 
in l)08i^ession of a large sum arising from the 
two and three per cent.' funds derived from the 
sale of public lands received from the United 
States, passed an act making an appropriation 
from the three per c nt. fund for the purpose 
of improving the navigation of various streams 
within the State. Sixty-five thousand dollars 
Wire appropriated for the improvement of ttie 
Chickasawka river; I believe I never heard of 
that stream before. John J. McKae, after- 
ward Governor of the State, took a contract 
and executed a bond for its performance and 
drew the money in advance. He did no work 
whatever, but drew the money. After several 
years had elapsed suit was brought on the 
bonds, and after many delays, and when it was 
supposed the case was ready to be tried, the 
bond was missing from the office of the Secre- 
tary of State, in which it had been filed. It 
was, therefore, necessary to file an amended 
declaration to aver upon the lost bond. The 
usual delays were resorted to in order to pre- 
vent the making of the issue. Finally the issue 
was made up, but before the case was tried 
McRae was elected Governor. Under the 
statute all suits were required to be brought 
in the name of the Governor, and the attorneys 
of the Governor filed a plea in abatement, al- 
leging that he was Governor of the State, and 
that an action could not be maintained, and 
therefore the suit was abated, because it had to 
be brouijht in liis name. I take it that it is a 
model in its way, and that nothing half so 
ingenious and smart has been done under the 
carpet-bag government. 

SACRED TRUST FUNDS STOLEN AND SQUAN- 
DERED. 

But, sir, it does not stop here; I now come to 
the question of the school fund of Mississippi, 
and I shall read Irom the report of the State 
Board of Education on that subject. 1 will re 
mark that the Government of the United 
States has dealt with Mississippi in the way of 
grants of land with more liberality than with 
any State of this Union. The total tcrant of 
lands to Mississippi has been 6,000,000 acres, 
equal to one-srtcth of the whole area of the 
State. It is estimated that, had these lands 
been husbanded and taken care of instead of 
squandered, their value would have been over 
$25,000,000. About 850,000 acres were orici- 
nally granted for school purposes — a quai/nV\- 
equal to over one-thirty-sixth of the whole an'.i 



15 



of the Siiitu — that is, tlie sixteeuth -cctimi ia 
every sectional township. 

Nearly all of this inuniflcent endowment has 
been disponed of and the proceeds squandered. 
From investigations already made, we are sat- 
isfied that thousands of acres of these lands, 
some of them the most valuable in the State, 
are held and occupied without the shadow of 
title. It is our purpose to thoroughly investi- 
gate this matter, and recover all lands thus 
illegally held. 

We have no means of arrlvina; at a correct 
estimate of the value of the unsold school 
lands, but it cannot be doubted that a very 
moderate degree of honesty, economy and skill 
in the administration ol' the lands donated by 
the (ieueral Goveriunent to the State for 
s«hoo! purp' ses, jvould have produced enough 
of revenue to have furnisheil perpetual and 
elKcient free schools lor all the people of both 
races in this State to the full extent of their 
needs forever 1 

The following table exhibits the amount of 
the proceeds arising from the sales and rental 
of school lands : 

Amount arising from the sale of 

Ohiclcas»\T lands $826,432 78 

That wa.s paid into the State treasury in 1857. 

and the wliolo amount loaned to four railroail 

companies indirect violation of tlio terms of the 

gram, and tho wliole amount lost. 

Amount arising from the sale qf 
Chickasaw lands $826,432 78 

Amount held by the State in trust. . . 815,227 73 

Amount of the proceeds arising from 
the sale and rental ol sixteenth-sec- 
tion lands, about l,500,eo* 00 

Agg:tegate amount of tlie proceeds 
arising from the sale and rental of 
school lands, about 2,326,432 90 

Of the proceeds of sale and rental of six- 
teenth-section lands it is estimated that at 
least $1,000,000 is a total loss on account of 
the want of proper management, and the re- 
mainder consists of outstanding claims, in 
notes, for loans and leases made by township 
trustees and the former board of police. 

UNPARALLELED CORRUPTION AND MALADMIN- 
ISTRATION. 

The school fund has been squandered ; the 
money for the education of the children has 
been stolen. It is a part of the financial his- 
tory of the State of Mississippi before the war. 
Now, the "white-liners"' of Mississippi, edu- 
cated in this way, pretend that they are out- 
raged by the frauils and corruptions of the 
Republican party in Mississippi, that they are 
justified in resorting to violence for the pur- 
pose of getting clear of that governmeut. I 
am reminded of a general exhibit of the finan- 
cial allairs of Mississippi, given in the message 
of Governor Tucker, and I would not do ray 
duty if I did not present it. I will ask the 
Clerk to read this, as I am somewhat fatigued. 
Tliis was the message delivered in 1843 by 
Governor Tucker. 
The Chief Clerk read as follows : 
"On the 1st day ot January, lS3S,as appears 
by the reports of the State treasurer up to tha', 
date, there was a surplus or balance of cash in 
the treasury amounting to $279fi\2M]4, not 
including, as I understand, either the ettects of 
the sinking fund, the seminary land fund or 
the Jackson City lot notes. Besides this bal- 
ance and the sinking fund in the Planters' 
Bank, the seminary land notes and the Jatikson 



Jit.y lot notes, the tiin'-:- in i'i .^.o^l* i.i t'lO 
I'iauters' Bank lo at least $2,000,000, which 
stock had, prior to that time, yielded to the. 
State a divid. nd of 10 percent., or $200,000. 
When I came into oilieo the scene was lament- 
ably chanLjed, notwithstanding the [lopulatinn 
ol" the State had been burdened witli the pay- 
ment of a heavy tax for eac: vcar prior to that 
period. What was the contii- -on of the Sta;e 
treasury when I came into olliv ^ On the KImIi 
of January, 1842, the report .-.' the Stat.i 
treasurer, as made to the Legisiature, shows ;i, 
balance in the treasury, on thr- :50th oi' >[ . 
vember, of $103,959.9.534, consisting of ' • • 
attorney general's receipts for claims on , . 
Brandon and other broken banks for the sum 
of $3;>;),102; the notes of the insolvent Mis^is^- 
sippi Uailroad Company, $6:>,0"0; the notes uf 
the Mississippi Union Bank, $1,S00; the notes 
of the Hernando Railroad Company, $2!); 
Jackson City corporation tickets, $:!.():i'^, ami 
specie, the sum of H-t cents. These anaoun^s 
are not, in my estimation, intrinsically worth 
5 per cent, on their amount. 

'* I found, at the same time, an immense 
liability pressing on the treasury in the shape 
of outstanding and funded auditor's warrants, 
ranging in amount from one half to throe 
fourths of a million of dollars, and that in- 
stead of the State tjeiug the owner of $2,000,- 
000 of stock in the Planters' Bank, yielding a 
dividend annually of $200,000, that this stO(;k 
had been referred to the Mississippi liailroail 
Company, then insolvent. 1 found, also, the 
first installment of the bonds issued on account 
of the Planters' Bank, $135,000, due and un- 
paid, as well as the interest for several ycais 
on said bonds. The interest, when added lo 
the first installment, amounted to but litilo 
short of $.500,000; making a difference to t!iii 
State in this transaction, including the $2,000, - 
000 of State stock transferred and thereby 
lost, of $2,.500,000. Besides these enormous 
liabiliiiet, I Jouud a claim set up against tha 
State of $5,000,000, in the shape of boud^ , 
created uuder and by virtue of the act su;*- 
pleraentary to the charter of the Mississippi 
Union Bank, together with the intere.-t 
which had accumulated thereon, a suia 
not short of $250,000. This sketch, 
which will be found bv practical tests to be 
more than fanciful, shows a vast difference in 
the financial condition of the State in the 
period of four years preceding my administra- 
tion. On the 1st day of January, 1838, there 
was in the treasury the sum of $379,01;) .31 Ij 
in cash. On the 10th day of January, 181:;, 
when I came into oilice, the real and pretended 
claims atrainst the State exceeded the sum of 
$8,000,000. This presents a scene of reckle.-,s 
extravagance and prodigality unaqualed in t!io 
administration of any fi;ee governiaent which 
has ever existed. The State has to exhibit ii.s 
the proceeds or avails of those enormous 
liabilities: First, the sinkiuf: fund in the Plan- 
ters' Bank, supposed to amount to between 
$500,000 and $1,000,000, but uncertain as to 
nominal amount, and still more so as to tho 
real and available value thereof; second, 
$3,000,000 in stock in the Mississippi Railro.id 
Company. This company has suspended both 
in the paym^mt of its liabilities and tiie per- 
formance ot the public works contemplated by 
its charter. The stock is of but lit le, if any, 
value. The railroad being completed only for 



16 



a short distuuce. yields but small profit, il' 
any, beyond the current expenses of the com- 
pany." 

HOW THE LATE CAMPAIGN WAS INAUGURATED. 

Mr. Morton. Mr. President, I have said as 
much in reaard to that State government be- 
fore the war as I care to do. I have very 
much more material of the same character, 
but it is hardly worth while to take up the 
time of the Senate readin;^ it. I now come to 
the question of the last campaiujn; the ques- 
tion of violence, intimidation and fraud; and I 
ask the attention of the Senate, and I ask the 
attention especially of the Democratic Sen- 
ators, who, I have no doubt, from sources of 
information more open to them or perhaps 
that they more frequently consult than we do, 
entertain sincerely different opinions. I want 
them to understand what was the true char- 
acter of tliat campaic;n, and I want them 
to understand how it started out — the 
policy of violence and of fraud in which It be- 
gan and in which it was consummated; and I 
first ask my friend from Kansas [Mr.lN- 
galIjS] to read an extract from the Raymond 
(Hinds county) Gazette, a leading Demo- 
cratic paper, in the month of August, at the 
beginnino; of the campaign, indicating a 
policy that was afterward pursued, as I am 
advised, in nearly every county of the State 
of Mississippi. 

Mr. Ingalls read as follows: 

"There are those who think that the leaders 
of the lladical party have carried this system 
of frauii and falsehood just far enough in 
Hinds couuty, and that the time has come 
when it sliould be stopped — peaceably if pos- 
sible, forcibly if necessary. And to this end it 
is proposed that whenever a liadical pow-wow 
is to be held, the nearest aotl-Radical club 
appoint a committee of ten discreet, intelli- 
gent and reputable citizens — -fully identified 
with the interests of the neighborhood, and 
well known as men of veracitv — to attend as 
representatives of the tax-payers of the neigh- 
borhood and the county, and true fsiends of 
the negroes assembled, and that whenever the 
Radical speakers proceed to mislead the ne- 
groes and open with fi'Jsehoods and deceptions 
and misrepresentations, the committee stop 
them riirht then and there, and compel them to 
tell the truth or quit the stand." 

THE WHITE-LINE POLICY. 

Mr. Morton. I shall read from many 
other Democratic newspapers durmg and early 
in the campaign, to show the spirit and policy 
In which it was conducted. I read from the 
Shuliuta Times: 

"Call it what you please. Some call it the 
color-line. It looks to us like' the white-line. 
It shall be seen who, in this emergency, can 
chose to stand with the negroes as against the 
whites. Mark them." 

Again I read from the Handsborough Demo- 
crat: 

"We are in favor of the color-line as a prin- 
ciple, a necessity and a policy. 

"As a principle it means that property, in- 
telligence and integrity enjoy, of right, a supe- 
riority over poverty, ignorance and duplicity; 
for which reason, as an abstract prineiple, it 
has our hearty indorsement." 

I now read from the Meridian Mercury : 

"Rally on the color-line boys, beyond the 



platform, every man to his color and colors, 
and make these negro pretenders to govern 
this great county come down, else put 'em 
down. Wliat do the young men say to the 
old man's battle-cry in this political campaign: 
' Step across the platform, boys, and go for 
'em.' " 

Nex-, from the Forest Register : 

"The body of the Democratic party will 
carry their colors of the White Line over the 
State. Some of the auxiliaries in a scout or 
bushwhacking manoeuvre may use a mild, con- 
servative face over the flag, but still it will rest 
on a white journal. To the Radicals we say 
just superintend your structure — we will raise 
our own flag and colors." 

Here is another \ 

"Tlie Forest Register keeps the following 
standing at the head of its editorial column : 

" 'A white man, in a white man's place. A 
black man. In a black man's place. Each ac. 
cording to the 'eternal fitness of things. ' " 

I read now from the Vicksburg Jfonitor, 
(Democratic,) being a report of the Demo- 
cratic State convention, August, 1875 : 

"As the convention was strictly White Line, 
and as no negroes were nominated, and as the 
hankering after the negroes was pretty thor- 
oughly squelched, how would it do to raise a 
little purse to buy a few bags of salt for tin- 
use of those who still want to try and catcli 
black birds?" 

From the Columbus Index : 

"Already do we see signs in our State of the 
good eQects of the color line. Prior to its or- 
ganization there was no harmony or unity of 
action among the whites. The negroes liad 
perfected their race in organiz.itions, and were 
aL)le to control the politics of the State. Thu 
whites, after having attempted every schenn; 
to secure an intelligent government and a co- 
operation of the negroes in this behalf, wisely 
gave it up, and determinerl to organize them- 
selves as a race, and meet the issue that had 
presented itself for ten years. 

"Now we recognize the fact that the State is 
most thoroughly aroused, more liarmouious in 
its actions, and more determined to succeed in 
the coming election than it has been since tlie 
days of secession. * * * * 

"So the grand result of the color line has 
been accomplished In organizing the wiute 
people of the State, and placing them in a po- 
sition to control the coming election. No other 
policy could have effected the result." 

From the Meridian Mermtry: 

"Our correspondent at Running Water Mills 
makes his points well. His positions caanot suc- 
cessfully be contradicted. The miserable bung- 
lers who have put the negro in the Constitution 
have certainly written themselves down asses 
all. VVhen we accept 'results of the war,' we 
do not accept the notion of statesmen, but the 
blunders of unreasoning malice and stupidity, 
and of course we continue to accept it only so 
long as we are compelled to." 

I read now from the Aberdeen True Rcpubli- 
cau, beintc a report of a speech by Col. G. E. 
Hooker, member of Congress from Mississii)pi, 
at Aberdeen, during the late canvass: 

"Col. Hooker, of Jackson, then addressed 
the convention in a speech of over an hour, in 
which he advocated the color-line, and said, in 
conclusion, 'White men must and shall rule in 
Mississippi.' " 



17 



The Vicksbuivj; Iferulti (Dcuu>ci\i;,i ) icpjiLs 
a epeteh of L. Q. C. Lainar, at Aberdeen, Mis- 
sissippi, tlius: 

"In bis speeah at Aberdeen, last Saturday, 
Colonel Lamar made an eloquent speech. A 
better Democratic speech we do not care to 
listen to, and in manly and ringing tones he 
declared that the tontest involved 'the suprem- 
acy of the unconquered and unconquerable 
Saxon race.' We were glad to hear this bold 
and manly avowai, and it was greeted with 
deafening plaudits. 

"We have never seen men more terribly in 
earnest, and the Democratic white-line spcesh 
made to them by Colonel Lamar aroused them 
to white heat." 

From the Canton 2fail: 

"It is useless to talk of the races living to- 
gether as free American citizens; it cannot be 
done; and justice to forty millions of whites 
demands that foar millions of blacks should be 
segregated from them. To permit them to 
remain together will be to continue to all 
time an unsettled &tate of society, with dread 
and distrust, and forever drive peace and 
prosperity from us. This is high ground, yet 
we believe it will come to this and that right 
soon. The flow of immigration that will set 
in with our harvest season will bring us an 
element that will supersede the negro as a 
laborer, will add strength and force to our 
intelligent voting population that will in time 
enable us to demand what the necessities of 
both races require." 

All these extracts are from papers during 
the last campaign. I now read from the West- 
ville (Mississippi) News: 

"vote the negko down ok knock him 

DOWN. 

"Does not the very thouirht boil the bl«od 
in every vein ? Will you still contend that we 
must not have a white-man's party ? Away 
with such false doctrines; we must and will 
have a white-man's party. We have tried 
policy long enough. We must organize on the 
color-line, disrciiarding minor considerations. 
The white-man's party is the only salvation 
for the State. Show the negro his place and 
make him keep it. If we cannot vote him 
down, we can knock hira down, and the re- 
sult will be the same. Either the white man 
or negro will rule this country; they cannot 
both do it, and it is for the white men to say 
who the ruler shall be. Let us have a white- 
man's party to rule a white- man's country, 
and to do it like white men." 

From the Okolona Southern States : 

"The African race ean no more be absorbed 
and trausmou'rilied into dignified, intelligent 
statesmen and responsible self-governing ciii- 
zens than the American Indians could be 
bought and trained to lay aside the tomahawk 
and live with us in peace, under an adminis- 
tration which promises equal rights, civil and 
political, to all men. Consequently we may 
expect these outbreaks." 

That was in reference to a murder which 
had been committed. I next read from the 
Columbus I'lulex: 

"The nscessities of the State of Mississippi 
recall this injunction and give emphasis to the 
parallel — put none but Democrats in office. 

"We have gained a great victory — Bull Run 



o;' Ciiickriinauga. Let us follow it up to the 
securing of results. 

"The white people must be welded into one 
compact organization. All dilTerences of 
opiuion, al! personal aspirations, must be 
settled wttli.n oixr own organiiv.ai on, and from 
its decis: : there must be no a;i;i.al. Other- 
wise each recurring election produces its dis- 
orders." 

AN OATE-nOUSTD WHITE-LINE LEAOCE. 

From the Columbus Index: 

"A color-line club has been organized in 
Columbus, of which we are proud to announce 
ourself a member. It is secret in its nature, 
but its principles are such that even the Con- 
servative editor of the Ind'peruknt could con- 
scientiously subscribe to them. The club has 



a large number of members, which is rapidly 



mereasmg." 

Now, from the 'Vicksburg Herald, August, 
1875: 

"The color-line was by common consent ig- 
nored" — 

I refer to this for the purpose of calling at- 
tention to the attempt that w is made in the 
Mississippi conveution, by p<!5.MUg a color-line 
resolution to disguise the real purpose and ob- 
ject of the party — 

"The color-line was by common consent ig- 
nored. It was only mentioned incidentally, 
and it was not 'liilled otf' either by the speech 
of Colonel Lamar or by a vote of the conven- 
tion. The representatives of the people ex- 
pressed no opinion on the subject. The con- 
vention left each county to manage its own 
affairs in its own way '" 

I now read from the Columbus Index: 

"We stand on the color line bec;'.use it is 
tacitly indorsed by tlie platform, and because 
we believe it to be the only means of redeem- 
ing this and other counties from negro rule." 

From the Vicksbur;; Monitor : 

"Is he white and true to his own color?" 

From the Yazoo Banner : 

"We have thrown the Banner to the breeze 
as the color-line organ of all good color-line 
citizens.'^ 

From the Winona Advance : 

"The motto of the Adva%ice, 'Mississippians 
should rule Mississippi,' should be changed to 
read 'shall and will' rule," &c. 

From the Newton Democrat : 

"Mr. Potter and ex-Gov. Brown, of Hinds, 
think the negro can be reasoned into Democ- 
racy, and they have been thinking so ever 
since the war; but for our own part we would 
as soon reason with a shoal of crocodiles or a 
drove of Kentucky mules. And so might they, 
for all the convictions they have produced in 
the counties of Hinds and Copiah." 

THE ALABAMA POLICY TRANSFEKRED TO MIS- 
SISSIPPI. 

From the Meridian Mercury, report of a 
speech made by Colonel Taylor, of Alabama, 
telling how that State was carried in 1874, and 
urging the same line of policy in Mississippi: 

"At first they tried the policy of conciliation. 
He said he did not believe they carried one 
single negro vote by it. Little by little they 
came to try the color-line in municipal elec- 
tions and then county elections here and 
there, and finding it to succeed, they at last 
made the State canvass upon it and redeemed 
the State." 



IX 



That is referrinn: to tlie Alabama election of 
1874. I have alreadj' spoken of that as beins: 
a carnival of blood and fraud. 

From the Vicksburj; Monitor : 

"For these reasons we say that the ne?ro as 
a voter and a citizen is a failure, and the Re- 
publican is the party convicted in the eyes of 
the world of a fearful crime, not only against 
the Southern people, but ajjainst the civiliza- 
tion and progress of mankind — such a crime as 
was never committed by a political party be- 
fore in the cycle of the centuries." 

Now, from the Columbus Democrat : 

"And the white men of Mississippi will do 
it, in spite of eloquent diatribes ami sham 
platforms which represent nothing but a 
clique's notions of expediency. In the contest 
on which they have entered they mean some- 
thing more than the election of certain men to 
office, or the elevation of Lamar or xVlcoru to 
the Senate. They mean the preservation of 
their constitution, their laws, their institu- 
tions, their civilization from impending ruin. 
They mean that white men shall rule Missis- 
sippi.'- 

Now, from the Jackson Clarion: 

"Appeal after appeal has been made in vain 
to the colored people. No more appeals will 
be made to them." 

From the Vicksburg Herald: 

"Colored men, remember that next Tu sday 
is your golden opportunity. Throw it away, 
and the white people will eliminate you from 
politics and discard you forever. The Con- 
gress already elected is Democratic, the next 
President of the United States will be a Dem- 
crat, and after next Tuesday this State and 
county will be Democratic. You have no hope 
and no salvation but in acting wish the Demo- 
cratic part}' in this contest. Will you do it?" 

From the Columbus Index: 

"Below we give a list of the presidents of 
the negro clubs in this county. lu the coming 
election these must be marked men. We re- 
quest every beat committee to save this list for 
future reference." 

Subsequent events show what was meant by 
that. 

From the Yazoo Democrat: 

"Let unanimity of sentiment pervade the 
minds of men. Let invincible determination 
be depicted on every countenance. Send forth 
from ourdeliberate assemblyof the eighteenth 
the soul-stirring announcement that Missis- 
sippians shall rule Mississippi though the 
heavens fall. Then will woe, irretrievable 
woe, betide the Radical tatterdemalions. Hit 
them hip and thigh, everywhere and at all 
times. 

"Carry the election peaceably if we can, 
forcibly if we must." 

From the Yazoo Democrat again : 

" There is no Radical ticlict in the field, and 
it is more than likely there will be none. For 
the leaders are not in this city, and dare not 
press their claims in this county." 

I referred to the returns from Yazoo county 
in the tirst. speech I made on this subject. In 
that county there was a regular, ordrinary Re- 
publican majority of 3,000. At the last elec- 
tion the Republicans gave just 7 votes and the 
Democrats 4,01:-i ! That shows the easy ex- 
planation of the Republican electors being ab- 
sent. I shall afterward introduce evidence to 
show thai they were driven out, and that a 



number of very bloody murders were com- 
mitted in that county. 

From the Aberdeen Examiner : 

" The present contest is rather a revolution 
than a political campaign ; it is the rebellion, 
if you see fit to apply that t/crm." 

From the Vicksburg Herald: 
" Spot the men who try to defeat the will of 
the people next Tuesday, and remember them 
hereafter." 

Remember that hereafter. 

From the Jackson Clarion : 

" Do not submit to any of the old ' back to 
breast ' arraneement, a long line of voters in 
which you have liitherto had to take the rear. 
H tliat game is tried again break the line. 
After you have carried the day at the polls 
submit to no throwing out of votes or of 
boxes. Put your votes in the boxes and see 
that they are counted and returned properly 
afterward. * * Hang the registrar that 
proposes to throw out a Democratic vote or a 
Democratic box." 

No difference how bold the fraud, how mani- 
fest it may be, "hang the registrar that pro- 
poses to throw out a Democratic vote or a 
Democratic box !" 

From the Yazoo Herald: 

" 'Shoot him on the spot,' if you find any 
man following Waner's suggestions about 
'counting the votes and making up the return' 
in the interest of Radicalism. 

"Our colored Democratic friends must not be 
beaten and scoffed at on the day of the election 
by men of their own color steeped to the lips in 
Radicalism. Let all such disturbers of the 
peace be shot on the spot as a tit punishment 
for their disgraceful coaduct. 

"Democratic votes must not be thrown out 
by false-hearted, scoundrelly registrars, work- 
ing in the interest of the Radical party. If 
this be done, shoot the man who docs it on the 
spot; and, our word for it, the public senti- 
ment of the world will sustain you. Such a 
man deserves to die tlie death of a dog." 

From the Vicksburg Herald- 

"Much as we deplore bloodshed and 'much 
as we lament violence, we believe that every 
riot will carry a plain lesson to the intelligent 
electors of Mississippi. To put down this 
riotous, revengeful feeling we have just got to 
put down the Ames ring. 

"Just so long as the Ames power rules Mis- 
sissippi, just so long will white men be com- 
pelled to sleep with guns handy to reach." 

TEY THE liOPE. 

From the Yazoo Democrat : 

"Speaking of the troubles in Madison county 
the Yazoo City Democrat for the 26th of Octo- 
ber says; 'Try the rope on such characters. 
It acts finely on such characters here.' " 

From the Forrest Reglater : 

"In this connection we will state that the 
white men who ally themselves with negroes 
in this confliet need not expect any better fate 
than they; fact is, they will be the first to suf- 
fer if the Caucasian can find them at all when 
trouble comes." 

From the Yazoo Democrat: 

"God speed the day when Mississippians 
shall rule Mississippi, and the Alonzo Phelps 
and Murrels of Radicalism shall find their fate 
in a 'stout rope and a short shrift.' Then will 
'peace reisfn in Warsaw.' " 



19 



From the Jackson Clurion: 

"If the old game of packins: the polls is at- 
tempted aud the Radicals will not o:ive you a 
chance to vote, break the line ! Come what 
will, break Uie line !" 

From the Aberdeen Examiner: 

"We have already broken the line in old 
Monro^', and we never intend that it shall be 
80 formed ai'ound the polls as to interfere with 
Democratic voters." 

From the Vicksburg Herald: 

"The wanton killinfi^ of a few poornegroes is 
something unworthy of our people. If the 
killing of anybody is necessary, we repeat 
what we have heretofore said: 'Let the poor 
negro pass, and l«t the white scoundrels who 
have llred his heart with evil passions be the 
only sufferers.' " 

I now ask my friend from Kansas to read an 
extract from the Meridian Mercury. 

Mr. Ingalls read as follows: 

LAMAR AT SCOOBA. 

"The leaders of the Radical forlorn hope 
have got Jason Niles, the back-salary grabber 
and force-bill supporter, with Cork-screw Mc- 
Kee, into the country, and they went to Sage- 
Yille yesterday to stir up the negroes ia that 
corner to the pitch of going 'through blood 
and hell to get to the polls and vote.' The 
quoted words are the koy-nole. McKee 
pitched the tune upon it at Okoloua the otner 
day. We echo the sentiment ol the gifted La- 
mar at Scooba the other day, when alluding 
to this diabolical advice, if, after all our over- 
tures to the negroes to have peace, and ap- 
peals to them to cease their hostility and the 
scathing ruin they infllit upon us with their 
hostile ballots, more terrible than hostile bul- 
lets; if they take McKee's advice xo go through 
biood and hell to ruin us with their votes, 'Go 
to hell aud be damned !' We beg leave to add 
they will find 'Jordan a (damned) hard road 
to travel.' " 

Mr. Morton. Again, from the same paper 
of another date: 

"Ames and his crew are, no doubt, endeav- 
oring to have the State overrun with Fedaral 
troops, aud to erect again the enginery of Ka- 
Klux courts to have another bayonet election 
this fall. It Is reported In some of the journals 
that gentlemen about Jaclison approached 
him the other day and told him flatly that his 
life should be the forfeit if he issued any of 
the State arms to negroes. While they were 
about it, we think he might, with equal pro- 
priety, have been spoken to about the Federal 
troops and Ku-Klux courts' business." 

From the Forrest Register I read: 

" There has been a light between the whites 
and blacks in Noxubee county. It is difBcult 
to arrive at any very definite results. No 
white man was hurt; eight negroes were re- 
ported killed, which we fear is true, but now 
it is stated that none were killed, but eleven 
wounded. For the next fourteen mobthe 
there will be lots of eolHsions, and we advise 
every white man to be prepared. The Rads 
know it is a death sVruggle." 

From the Jaokson Clarion: 

" The time has arrived when the eorapanies 
that have been formed for de/ensive and 
protective purposes should come to the fron;. 
There are three of them in the eity of Jaokson. 
There are others in other pans of Hinds 



county. Let still others be formed all over 
the State as speedily as possible, and armed 
and equipijed with the best means that can be 
extemporized for the occasion." 

From the Vicksburg Herald: 

"In it? head lines to the news we print else- 
where of trouble in Tallahatchie county, the 
Vicksburg Uerahl significantly says: 'The 
negroes in North Mississippi need a little kill- 
ing.' " 

ALABAMA MINUTE MEN STANDBY THEIR ARMS. 

From the Mobile Jiegif^ler: 
"If the tocsin of war is sounded by Ames he 
will find men, monoy and arms trooping across 
our border to defend our kinsmen and our 
trade. This is no vain and idle threat. Tlie 
moment Ames org.inizes his militia let the 
Democratic and "Cou^rvalive young men or- 
ganize bands of minute-meu in every county. 
Let them stand by their arms." 
From the Aberdeen Examiner: 
"In our sister county of Lowndes, Gleed, one 
of the basest and most reckless negroes in the 
State, is now, the Radical candidate for sheriff, 
and confidently expects to be elected. The 
white people of Lowndes county will make the 
best fight possible again.st him at the polls, 
and, failing there, are determined that he 
shall never, under any circumstances, fill the 
office." 

From the Holly Springs Reporter: 
"Gov. Ames has made proclamation order- 
ing the military companies of the State to dis- 
band at once. No attention is being paid to 
his proclamation, so far as we have heard, and 
the probability is that no company now organ- 
ized will disband at this particular juncture. 
We think the times demand the organization 
of more companies, and, if it becomes imprac- 
ticable to organize by daylight, then the wOrk 
will go on at that dread hour when 'grave- 
yards yawn and hell itself breathes out conta- 
gion to the world.' " 

I want to call the attention of the Senate to 
these fasts. Governor Ames .had five compa- 
nies in Mississippi. It was said that if he dared 
to call out those companies it would be the 
signal for a general slaughter. He found that 
he could not use colored troops to keep the 
peace, or to protect even the colored people, 
and General George, the chairman of the Dem- 
ocratic State committee, came to him and 
said: "If you will now disband yoar militia, I 
will undertake, upon the part of the Demo- 
cratic party and my friends, that we will keop 
the peace." The General Government had 
failed to respond to the demands of Governor 
Ames, and he was utterly powerless, and was 
compelled to make a treaty with the chairman 
of the Democratic State committee, by which 
that committee promised to lieep the peace 
upon the condition that bewould dissolve his 
military companies. Ho did disarm them, but 
uo company on the other side was disarmed, 
and here is the evidence of it: The white com- 
panies rctt-^ned their arms, and new companies 
were formed every day, until they existed in 
every counky and almost every township of the 
whole Sttfj. 
I read i^om the Yazoo Banner : 
"It it no longer 'renounce the dovll and his 
pomp,' but forswear his twin brother Radical- 
ism, wLh hlo manifold machinations and 
chicanery; then you, with your county, will be 



\ 



20 



safe. Take a little advice, ye imps of Radical- 
ism hereabouts." 

What that mea.nt is shown by what after- 
ward occurred. I will now read the following 
from the Hinds county Gazelle: 

"Tlie clubs in some parrs of the county re- 
commend that the anti-Radicals vote open 
ticket at the election. The proposition is a 
good one, and if universally adopted, may be 
made answer a very good purpose. The 
Democratic Conservative committee at each 
voting- place will be prepared with a list of all 
r^he voters at the box, and as each man votes 
his name will be checked otT, and the character 
of the ticket he votes may then be entered 
with certainty if the Democrats and Conserva- 
tives agree to vote open tickets. All open 
tickets will speak for themselves, while the 
folded ticket, as a mass, may be counted Kadi- 
cal, and the men votinpj them entered on the 
club book)i an Radicals . The cUizens of the coun- 
try — ef:j)ecially the land-ownera and merchanti — 
deaire to knoxo who are their friendu!" 

DEMOCRATIC PROSCRIPTION AND INTOLER- 
ANCE. 

I said something jesterday, and I want again 
to refer to the proscription practiced upon 
white Republicans, the course taken to drive 
them out of the Republican party, to destroy 
them if they joined it, and to keep others from 
joining it. I could refer to very many illas- 1 
trations, but I will preseot one set of the reso- I 
lutions that were adopted in the county of | 
Noxubee by the Cooksville Democratic club, i 
They are putilishod in febe Columbm; Index: ' 
and I will say in advance that Mr. Ma Horner, j 
the man reltrred to, is the richest man in 
Noxubee county; is said to own twenty thou- | 
sand a«res of land. He was a Confederate 
during ihe war, and has been a Conservative 
Democrat since that time; but, baing a large 
properly-holdvT in the county, he had much 
interest in the election of proper supervisors, 
and he allowed his name to tie put on the Re- 
publican ticket for supervisor of the county, 
an office without emolument, the supervisor 
there having simply the power whick a county 
comitQit.sioQer has in Indiana and other States. 
Now, I want to read the resolution of the Dem- 
ocratic Conservative.. club, of Cooksville, in 
regard to Mr. Ala Horner, a man of unques- 
tionable character: 

"Whereas Mat Ma Horner, in the late elec- 
tion, acted in a mann»r totally offensive to the 
interests of the wkite men of otir country and 
the policy of the Demoeraric-Conservative 
party, by violating his promise to act with said 
party, by starting an opposition ticket, vvlth 
his name connected with two scalawags (I. L. 
Wilkersou and Bill Parmenter) and a negro, 
(Robert Dacy,) which was loathsome :ind des- 
picable and injurious to the white man's 
cause, by erasing the names of his friends and 
putting others in their places eqtially despised, 
and by him and his scalawag associates dis- 
tributed and placed in the hands of the negroes 
on his own plantation and of the neighborhood 
and at a negro church on Sunday" — 

You see they do not like to have the Sabbath 
violated — 

'■'■ Resiolved, 1. That we unanimously consider 
him a trctilor to his comitrv and an enemy to 
his neighbors. I 

" 3, That henceforth we shall have no moral, I 



I social or political association \vith such a beast 
I in man's clothing, nor will wc countenance 
I any man who condescends to associate socially 
I with him. 

''3. That these resolutions be considered as 
! applying as much to I. L. Wilkerson as to Mat 
I Ma Horner. 

I •' 4. Tliat the Macon Beacon be requested to 
j publish these resolutions and send a copy to 
j each of the above mentioned traitors. 
I " 5. That as Bill Parmenter has repudiated 
and seeks to be a wliite man, we extend to him 
I our cordial sympathy. 

I " Done by order of the club at Cooksville, 
j December 11, 1875. 

"J. L. HiBBLER, President. 
".J. R. D. King, Seeretary pro tempors." 

A SrSTEM OV COERCION. 

A very general system of coercion was 
adopted throuirhout the South by Democratic 
clubs and associations agreelni: not to employ 
negroes who voted the Iv'pubiicnn ticiiet, not 
to lease them lands, nor to furnish them with 
or allow tham to obtain for themselves any 
means of subsistence. I have here a number 
of resolutions on the part of such clubs and 
declarations on the part of Ihoir newspapers, 
but I shall content myself with reading only a 
few, as the time is passing. I will first ask ray 
friend from Kansas to read from the Chicka- 
saw Messenger a communication from Buena 
Vista, Mississippi. 

Mr. Ingalls read as follows: 

"Bdena Vista, Miss., Jan. 1, 1876. 

"Editor Messenger: The following list 
comprises the freedmen that have been reported 
by the members of the Buena Vista Demo- 
cratic Conservative c!ub i'.» the one third that 
would be refused to recontract for the year 
187(?. You are requested by the club to pub- 
lish their names in the Jfesscngfr. 

"Respectfully yours, 

"C. A. M. Pulliman, 
^'■Secretary Buena Vista Democratic Conserves 

Hue Club." 

"Fred. Crow, Frank Williams, Dary Holli- 
man, John Doss, Wade Pulliam, Calvin Glad- 
nev, Joe Moora, Henry Johnson, Anderson 
Williams, Ed. Bramlett, John Pulliam, Ben 
Vailiant, Gay Brand, Wash. Chandler, Jake 
Walkur, Henry Woodard, Lawsoa Pulliam, 
W. Huddltstone, Martin Pulliam, Ed. Kyle, 
Culvin Gray, John Bushanan, Dan Punds, 
Albert Conor, Ed. Nathan, Jitn Pulliam, 
Simon Baskin, Bill Pulliam, Georgs Gates, J. 
Featherston, Sh»di Love, Hiiliard Fields. 

"We are not familiar with the names of all 
the leading darkies in Bvtena Vista, but it oc- 
curs to us that many of them do not appear 
upon the list sent to us. We maj not under- 
stand aright the action of the Buena Vista 
club, but our impression was that one third of 
the laborers were to be discharged, and that 
one. third shocld include such turbulent, vi- 
cious rascals as Fred. Mcintosh, Prince Hud- 
dlestone and others, who once held high carni- 
val in that seetion. Let us have no 'whipping 
the devil around the stump,' iriends, but let 
us carry our pledges both inspirit and letter." 

"Houston, January, 1876. 
"Pursuant to a call of the president, the 
club met at the court-house at 11 o'clock a. 
ra.; W. S. Bates, presiding. 



21 



"On motion of Captain Frank Burkitt, the 
following: resolutions were read : 

" 1. That we solemnly declare our purpose 
to stand to and abide by om- plederes made 
during flbe canvass, and that we will hold in 
utter detestation any man claiming to be a 
Conservative Democrat who by any equivoca- 
tion shall in the least violate the sacred prom- 
ises made by us previous to «he election, eilrtier 
as a club or as individuals. 

"2. That at no time and under no circum- 
stances will we employ those who are regarded 
as leaders in the Radical party. 

"o. That we will not employ an; laborer 
who has been discharged by any member of 
our club because of his past political course. 

"4. That tiie members of this eiub are re- 
quested to send into the secretary the names 
of all persons turned off by them under &he 
above resolutions, and that the executive com- 
mittee of the county is requested to publish 
their names. 

"5. Tliat every other club io the county is 
requested to take like action. 

"6. That our papers are requested to publish 
these resolutions and the names of persons 
sent to them by the execuive committee. 

"7. That colored men are invited to join this 
club. 

"S. That this club meet the Jfirst Saturday 
In each month. 

"J. B. Gladnet, 

"Secretary." 

THE STARVING-OUT PKOCE.'SS. 

Mr. MORTON. I will now ask my friend to 
read certain extracts and state what papers 
they are from. 

Mr. Ingalls read as follows: 

"The Democratic Conservative Club at 
Eocky Springs, Clairbourne county, on Satur- 
day last discussed Wie question of renting 
lands, advancing supplies and employing men 
in the year lS7(i who voted the radical ticket 
in 187-5. It was finally determined that no 
member of the club should rent or advance to 
or employ any but members of the Democratic 
Conservative party, and any employed men 
who voted the Radical ticket at the late 
election should be discharged at the ex:pira- 
tion of the year unless they came forward 
voluntarily and joined the club and promise 
henceforth to act openly with the friends of 
honest and good government. 

Mis it not time that the Raymond club 
should take some definice action on this sub- 
ject? We are to have a Presidential election 
in 1876, and in 1S77 a Governor and all the 
State officers are to be elected. Our triumph 
in 187.5, great as it certainly is, will not be 
complete unless we repeat it in 187ti and airain 
in 1S77." — Raipnond Gazette, December, 1875. 

"Colonel R. O. Reynolds, our noble stand- 
ard-bearer in this Senatorial district, sounded 
the key-note of the campaign in his brief but 
tellinu- speech at Buena Vista last 'Shursday, 
when he said that his platform hereafter was 
that 'whoever eats the white man's meat must 
vote with the white man or refrain from voting 
at all,' and the immense applause with which 
this sentiment was greeted showed that he had 
reached the heart of every auditor." — Aberdeen 
Exainiiier . 

"Remember that you solemnly pledged 
yourselves, each to each, aud one to the other, 
that after the expiration of your present co'i- 



tracts and leases you would neither rent land 
to nor employ any lessee or laborer, 'without 
resrard to race, solor or previous condition of 
servitude,' who sanctioned the oppression under 
which you and your dear ones groaned, by his 
voice on the 2d of November; that inismuch 
as it was impossible for many of you to make 
a clean sweep on the 1st of January, you each 
and every one of you acreed not to lease land 
or hire one third of thlise now your tenants 
and employees who disdained your proffered 
friendship, an<l tJaat no one of you would con- 
tract with, as landlord or employer, any 
laborer or tenant who so refused. 

" This solemn pledge was made in the hour 
of danger ; it was made for the salvation of all 
that you held sacvred aud dear, and you arc not 
true men to yourselves or your country if you 
do not stand by it now that the storm has 
passed." — Aberdeen Examiner. 

Resolutions adopted by the McCondy Store Club, 
Chickasatv County. 

" Resolved, 2. That we organize ourselves 
I into a company, for in time of peace we should 
prepare for war. 

'^ Resolved, 'i. That we pledge ourselves in- 
dividually aud coUeciively not to employ in 
any manner, for any purpose, direcMy or indi- 
re«tly, any man, black or white, who casts his 
vote with the so-called Republican party at the 
next election. 

" Resolved, 4. That if any member of this 
cjub fails to comply with the provisions of the 
lurt*- resolution he be expelled from (the club, 
aud bis name be published in the Messenger, 
and Southern States." 

"How IT IS Done in CmcnASAW Countt. — 
The Democratic clubs of this county are re- 
quested to meet at their respective club rooms 
on Saturday, November I'j. Every member 
will at that meeting give to the secretary of 
this club a list of the names of his employees 
with whom be does not expect to make con- 
tracts next year. The secretaries of the 
different clubs will please forward a complete 
list of these names to the secretary of this 
committee. 

"D.;P.BL.i.CK, 

"Chairman Democratic Executive Commit- 
tee." 



"A Republican victory in Mississippi this fall 
means 10,000 laboring men out of work and 
out of iooii.."—Vicksburg Herald. 

"Are those who are to be turned off For vot- 
ing the Republican ticket included in this num- 
ber? " — Jaekson Times . 

"That's the understanding in i^bis part of the 
country." — Aberdeen Examiner . 

"Men who employ hands, or rent lands, or 

advance supplies on crops, yet have the right 

in Mississippi to employ, to rent lanl and to 

advance to whom they please. They are not 

compelled to contract with Radicals, and they 

I may refuse to do so if they think proper. Men 

I do not often willingly feed and provide for 

I their enemies." — Raymond Gazette. 

TESTIMONY INEXIIAUSTIBLE. 

j Mr. Morton. I could treble the number of 

I these extracts. I did not suppose it was neces- 
j sary to read them all, and 1 have not done so. 

I I have brought them to the attention of the 

j Senate ibr ttie purpose of showing the spirit of 



22 



the Mississippi press durinic the last campaign, 
the publications from day to day and week to 
week, testimony that cannot be controverted, 
and will not be, on the other side. It is a run- 
uino: history made up at that time, one not 
made up afterward, to suit a political exi- 
gency. 

I shall continue, also, to read Irom Demo- 
cratic sources. I now call the attention of the 
Senate to the letters of H. B. Redfield, pub- 
lished iu the Cincinnati Commercial, an Inde- 
pendent ^newspaper well known to you . Mr. 
Redfield is a Democrat, and a very well-known 
correspondent. He has been the resrular 
Southern correspondent of that paper for eisht 
years, and lives at Chattanoo3;a, Tenn. He is 
a very ardent Democrat, but a man of s^rcat 
intelligence, and I think a very goad man. 
You vrill find in his letters his prejudices 
against negroes and negro suffrage and against 
what he calls carpet-bag governments. I shall 
ask the attention of the Senate on both sides 
of the chamber to the statement of facts made 
by Mr. Redfield. His character as a man can- 
not be impugned, I presume, on this floor by 
anybody. These letters are somewhat lengthy, 
but they are interesting and very valuable as 
showing the character of the campaign. He 
traveled through the State of Mississippi just 
before the election, and his letters are written 
from Jackson, the capital of the State. I have 
quite a number of them. I shall not read all 
of them, but if any of my friends on the other 
side desire to look at these letters they will be 
at their service, so that they may read any of 
the passages that I do not read. His letter of 
October 25, 1S75, from Jackson, Miss., begins 
as follows : 

"The sacrifice of life in this campaign is ap- 
palling. In the past sixty days no: less than 
one hundred men have been killed in political 
quarrels growing out of politics and the rela- 
tion of the races. In this estimate I do not in- 
clude sutih as have fallen in meroly personal 
difiiculties, disconnected with politics, such as 
the killing of Cooke in Senatobia, Wilson in 
Grenada, and Nye in Yazoo. These 'personal 
difficulties,' ending in shooting and stabbing, 
keep up at about the same ratio in times of 
profound quiet and peace as in seasons of polit- 
ical turmoil and confusion. During exciting 
political campaigns the murder list is fearfully 
augmented by race difficulties and riots and 
assassinations. 

"But it was of race difficulties here that I 
propose to write, and not of personal quarrels 
between man and man. I was drawn into it 
by n adiug accounts of some recent killings in 
adjaceni States, which were so absolutely un- 
necessary as to be doubly shocking. 

"The condition of affairs in Mississippi is 
very bad, but so much better than immediately 
before the recent 'treaty of peace' that 
thoughtful men feel a sense of relief." 

This was after the treaty that Governor 
Ames had been compelled to make with Gen- 
eral George, tte chairman of the Democratic 
committee. 

"At the time of the conference between Gov 
ernor Ames and the leading Conservatives, the 
State was on the very brink of a volcano. | 
Negro militia were strutting around, pompous 
with conceit and ignorance, and face to face 
with them in this vc-y cicy were liuudreds of 



white men, with pistols buckled on the outside 
of their clothing." 

Other evidences will show hereafter that 
there were but five colored companies in the 
State, less than five hundred men, and, so far 
from strutting around otfensavely .they scarcely 
dared to drill in public, never "dared to make 
the slightest demonstration; and those few 
companifes Governor Ames was compelled to 
disband. I shall show hereafter that his own 
life depended upon it. 

"A little spark, a single difficulty between a 
white man and a black man, would have fired 
the magazine, and the most furions slaughter 
would have commenced. Of course, the 
negroes would have fallen like the leases of 
the forest, militia, and all. Although in the 
1 majority, they cannot stand against the whites, 
and it is the height of absurdity to suppose 
that they can, or to put arms into their hands. 
When the result of a race fight is figured out, 
it is always found that about fifteen negroes 
have fallen to one white man." 

I think the evidence will show a hundred 
negroes to one white man. 

"But for that peace conference and agree- 
ment by the Governor to disband the militia 
which he had just called out, all this cen- 
tral section of the State would have been 
plunged into war, compared to which the 
Vicksburg and Clinton riots and sla.ughterjngs 
would be as nothing. Yet some of the skillet- 
headed negroes here in Jackson who owe their 
lives to the Governov's humane action are 
finding fault with him for making them 
(the negro militiai disband and give up their 
arms . 

«■ * * * -:f 

" The whites are actuated by a firm, I may 
say a desperate determination to carry the 
election— that is, gain the Legislature. They 
say they must have it, or see their State sink 
into such a condition of worthlessness and 
wretchedness that it would not brine two dol- 
lars and a half at auction. They point to the 
steady decline of property and rise of taxes 
simte the negroes took control, and they affirm 
that their very self-preservation demands that 
this rule be overthrown." 

PROPERTY NOT DEPRECIATED. 

Here Mr. Redfield .'•efers to that stereotyped 
falsehood about the great increase of taxes 
and the depreciation of property. I am in- 
formed, and I believe the statement to b-; true, 
that there has been no decrease in the price of 
property in Mississippi since 1870. In ISfiOtLO 
property in Mississippi was valued at $.541,- 
000,000, with the slaves. In 1870, at the be- 
ginning of reconstruction and Republican gov- 
ernment, it was valued at .$1.50,000,000; and 
there has been no decline in real value since 
that time, whatever the assessments may 
show. I am informed if a man wants to buy 
land he cannot buy it one cent cheaper, and in 
many counties lie cannot buy it as cheaply as 
he could five or six years ago. I am told an- 
other thing, too, that land is rented iu Missis- 
sippi to colored men for a price upon the acre 
each year that is eaual to the assessed value 
of the land. 

Mr. Spexoer. More than its assessed value. 

Mr. Morton. The Senator says more than 
its assessed value. I am told that in many 
cases it is quite equal to it, and perhaps in 



23 



some cases it is rented for more than the land 
Is taxed for. lu some places cottou-land is 
rented for $12 au acre to colored men, while 
to ordinary farmers $6, $5 and as low as $'■> 
an aexe, and very many of these plantations 
were not appraised ai over $2, $3 and $i an 
acre. The rcsn.t is that the negroes come 
out in debt at 'he end o<' every year. Their 
earnings are almost totally absorbed, and they 
fall behind. 
I am reading from the same letter : 

OUTKAGES IN' YAZOO COUNTY. 

"Morgan, the sheriff of Yazoo county, had 
to flee for his life, and is now iu this city. He 
has positive assurance that if he comes back 
to Yazoo his life will be taken, and, very 
properly, he has coucluded to remain here a 
while.'-' 

Now, says Mr. Iledfield : 

"What a spectacle is this! Here is the legal 
sheriff of a county containing over two thou- 
sand Kepublican majority who fear to go back, 
and where the majority is as worthless as 
straw iu protecting him. Ordinarily, the 
thing for a sheriQ' to do when attacked liy a 
mob is to summon a posne, the power of the 
country. But should Morgan attempt that no 
wiiite man would obey him, and any negro 
who obeyed would be shot on short notice. In 
the very nature of things a negro is utterly 
worthless to perform this branch of a citizen's 
Cuty. Morgan 's a white man, but he has ren- 
dered Irkuself doubly obnoxious to the whites 
by marrying a \i\dv with colored blood in her 
veins. 

"It looks to me very much as if the more 
headstrong of the whit'^s of that county had 
determined to get rid of 'negro rule' and had 
set about it systematically. Let us see. On 
the night of Sepi ember 1, the Republican club 
met at Ya/oo City." 

The account of the difficulties I have almost 
entirely from Democratic sources — 

" Morgan was making a speech, when some- 
body denounced him as a liar." 

That was iu pursuance of an arrangement 
made in the begiuuiug of tiie campaign to ap- 
point men to attend everj' public meeting, 
and if anything was said which was distaste- 
ful to call the speaker a liar oi make him leave 
the stand. 

" This, we are told, ' was followed by firing, 
and fifty shots wore fired.' K. B.Mitchell, a 
leading white Republican, was shot dead. 
Several negroes were wounded. Morgan v/as 
not hit, although a dozen shots wtre aimed at 
him. He'jumpid out of aback window and 
escaped to the woods and thence to this city. 

"Now, anybody with half an eye or no eye 
at all can see that this was a plot to get rid of 
Morgan and the Republican leaders. Not a 
Republican fired a shot or attempted the least 
resistance. Tha netjroes, like Morgan, jumped 
from windows ai.a ran pell-mell out of town. 
Morgan came to Governor Ames and applied 
for ml!itia to rei: tate himself. TheGovernor 
hesitated, but finally agreed. Word went to 
Yazoo with the rapidity of the wind, and 



within twentj'-four hours eight hundred armed 
men were on the road toward Vau'jrhan Sta- 
tion to meet Morgan and his 'nigger militia.' " 

I have a Democratic newspaper on my desk, 
giving an account of the asscmblaire of eight 
hundred and fifty armed men -xt Vauuhan 
Station, with the avowed purpose of ab.-olutely 
amiihilaling any forces that Morgan might get 
to come to Yazoo county to assert his charac- 
ter as a sheriff. 

"The State was on the verge of war, and 
just at the opportune moment, when the spe- 
cial train v/as ready to carry tht; negro militia 
to Vaughan Station, the peace policy pre- 
vailed, and Ames disbanded and disarmed 
them. He could do nothing else unless he 
wanted them killed, for killed they would 
have been as sure as fate. The duties of the 
sherifl' meantime are being performea by Mor- 
gan's depu'Jes, who have not been disturbed. 

"But there was another Republican leader 
whom it seemed necessary to get rid of. This 
was Patterson, colored, member of the Legis- 
lature. A negro was shot in a cotton field, by 
whom it was not clear. Another poor devil of 
a negro was jerked up by the whites, charged 
with the crime, and he 'confessed' that he did 
it, and that Patterson promised him $50 for 
the job. This settled the fate of poor Patter- 
son. He was arrested, and along with the 
negro who made the confession, brought to- 
ward Tazoo City. A dispatch to the Vicks- 
burg Herald says that the deputy was 
returning to this city with the prisoners, when 
they were met by an armed body, and 
Patterson taken from him. They report him 
lostiuthi swamp. The other prisoner was 
brought to this city and placed in jail. That 
tRlls the story. Patterson was taken to the 
woods and murdered. But the other prisoner, 
who confessed to doing the deed, was suffered 
to go to jail ! It was all a bungling device to 
get Patterson out of the way. "With Morgan 
ran off, and Mitchell shot to death, and Pat- 
terson lost in the swamp, the negroes would 
be without organization, and would of neces- 
sity allow the election to go by default. They 
can do nothing without leaders. What is the 
result i " 

The result of all was that the Republicans, 
having a majority of 2,000 in that county, were 
only able to poll seven votes. 

'' What is the result? The negroes, although 
having a majority of over 2,000J tuivu uo ticket 
in the field, and peace prevails, for there is uo 
cause of irritation. The whites will elect their 
entire ticket, and hereafter will allow just 
enough negroes to vote not to endanger their 
supremacy. Nothing short of the power of 
the Federal Governmcni; can revive the Re- 
publican party in Yazoo ; and then it will 
tumble over again as soon as that power is 
withdrawn. 

* * * * a 

" When one of these counties escapes from 
what they style 'negro rule,' uo matter how, 
nothing but the active power of the Federal 
Government can restore it again." 

Mr. President, with these remaiks I close 
the discussion for lo-day. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 542 449 5 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 542 449 5 



